07 Sep Circumcision from NT Eyes
Circumcision is a strangely weird idea. It seems out of place in today’s world, and seems to belong to an ancient time. And yet, in the ancient world it was also an unusual idea, not commonplace at all. So how did it even get going, and how should we look at it from a New Testament point of view.
Circumcision makes a sudden appearance in the Bible in Genesis 17 where God makes a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. They are to be circumcised as part of the covenant.
But circumcision had a prior existence in history, with the Egyptians. Or to be precise with a few certain selected Egyptians, most notably it was an exclusive thing. To be circumcised was to be invited into a special group. The earliest example of circumcision in history is carved onto the wall of an Egyptian ruin. So it seems that God took a thing in the world, with a pre-existing cultural meaning, and appropriated that meaning to mean something to Abraham.
It was something with a special meaning, and Abraham and his descendants were included. They were brought into the family of God, and were close to him and a part of what God was wanting to do.
But physically it was a sign of removing the flesh.
And so we come to the New Testament. It was the prophet Jeremiah who said that the Lord wanted to write his law on our hearts. And it is actually in Deuteronomy 10 with Moses that the idea of circumcising your hearts first appears in the Bible. God actually wants the flesh cut out of our hearts, and how that happens is through a work of the Holy Spirit. We are not to be fleshly, worldly or interested in things other than the Lord. These other things are not to take our hearts, but they are to be given to Him.
So when we come to Christ, with hearts set on him, we are in his covenant, the new covenant, the covenant of grace.
So circumcision, a picture from the Old Testament is something we find with fuller, deeper meaning, through Christ and the new covenant.
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