Twenty-Four years before Abraham received the covenant of Circumcision God spoke to him saying, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great (Gen 12:2).”  Later, as God was confirming that promise, Abraham reminded God that he had no heir.  God responded, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars…” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be (Gen 15:5).”  As time passed Abraham and his wife Sarah were still unable to conceive and in a moment of impatience took matters into their own hands.  In disobedience, Abraham and his servant Hagar bore a son together.  Abraham was ninety-nine when Ishmael was born to Hagar and right after Ishmael’s birth God confirmed again His promise to Abraham that through his own progeny God would deliver.  In that confirmation Circumcision was given as the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham.

“And 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 (Gen 17:9-11).”  It would be one more year until Isaac was born to Sarah beginning the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham.

Normally, I would leave those passages and move on, confident in my understanding of circumcision.  Most of us are fully aware that the descendants of Abraham to this day circumcise their sons on the eighth day after birth.  However, Paul, in the New Testament, explaining the nature of The Law wrote that, “circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter (Rom 2:29).”  And I wonder, “wouldn’t it have been easier to have conveyed his message by simply stating that righteousness is found in the heart and not in the letter of the law?”  But he did not.  In conveying his message, he pointed back to circumcision of all things.  So, I should probably take a deeper look at the sign of circumcision.

The first thing I notice is that circumcision of the heart is not a New Testament phenomenon.  We read in Deuteronomy that we are to, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn (Deu 10:16)” and “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live (Deu 30:6).”  The prophet Jeremiah commands the Israelites to, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts… (Jer 4:4)” and warns them that, “the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— …and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart (Jer 9:25-26).”   This is not a new idea introduced by Paul in order to “spiritualize” the life and death of Jesus.  This is an Old Testament concept that Paul is connecting to Jesus.

Circumcision is the sign of the covenant given to Abraham in that God had promised to make Abraham a great nation and a blessing to all peoples.  The promise was given to Abraham that would be fulfilled entirely and completely by God.  Abraham would have to do nothing but believe God would be true to His word.  However, God did require Abraham to take a sign that would point to that promise.  A sign that demonstrated Abraham believed.  To not take the sign would be to invalidate or to reject the promise.  “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 (Gen 17:14).”  Abraham and his progeny could do nothing to fulfill the promise.  However, they could cut themselves off from the promise by rejecting the trustworthiness of the one who gave it.

The wording of the sign also gives a clue as to the nature of the sign; “the flesh of the foreskin.”  Paul, writing to the Colossians, explains, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh… (Col 2:11).”  The idea of the sinful flesh is an idea that Paul develops further in Romans.  The Law could not produce righteousness in that it was weakened by sinful flesh (Rom 8:3).  Those who walk according to the flesh could not hope to keep The Law, the righteous requirement for righteousness.  “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh…” and to set your mind on the things of the flesh is death in that it is to place your mind in opposition to God (Rom 8:5-7).  James described our own desires as that which brings us into opposition to God, “…each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (Jas 1:14-15).”  Flesh is the term used to describe our own sinful desires and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8).”  For Abraham to circumcise his sons and for Abraham to circumcise their sons was to take the sign of a promise in a single act of obedience.  That obedience was the symbolic act of removing their own sinful and selfish desires.

Our hearts are the seats of our desires.  To remove the foreskins of our hearts is to remove our own selfish desires so that all that remains is a true heart for God.  Perhaps the thing that intrigued me most about my contemplation of the sign of circumcision was the discovery that while God commands His elect to, “circumcise themselves to the Lord (Jer 4:4)” He also declares that “the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts (Deu 30:6).”  Our sinful desires are what separate us from the Lord.  The sin for which we are justly accountable to God require a just God to act and to act against those who have sinned.  How can you love a God who you know will one day execute that judgment?  In the absence of salvation all you have are the pleasures of this world ahead of that judgment.  But that same God, sent His only Son as the embodiment of flesh (Rom 8:3) to receive the justice that you deserved.  He has removed the consequences of your selfish desires.  When you know this to be true the only thing that now remains is the love that you have for a God who first loved you (1Jo 4:19).  He has given you a new heart circumcised unto Him.

One final thought.  God has done this entirely of Himself.  Apart from Jesus’ work on the cross salvation from a just verdict is impossible.  Apart from that act the foreskin of your heart remains.  And you must take the sign of that circumcision.  Not to do so is to reject the New Covenant offered by God.  Anyone who doubted whether Abraham, or one of his sons, had taken the sign of the covenant could merely look and know for sure.  If someone were to doubt that you had taken the sign of the New Covenant what would, or should, they be looking for to know?  What does the sign of the New Covenant look like?  What does circumcision of the heart look like?  I think it would look like obedience.  I think it would look a lot like what James describes in his letter.  Have you accepted Jesus promise of eternal life in Him?  Does your life bear the sign of that promise?

“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, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (Col 2:11-12).”

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