Saints: Life & Times
Lesson 1: Holiness
Putting off the body of the flesh
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God the Almighty. Walk in my presence and be perfect. I will make my covenant between you and me, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Abram fell prostrate and God spoke to him thus, “This is my covenant with you: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations; you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. . . . I will establish my covenant between you and me and your descendants after you throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant, that I may be a God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give you and your descendants after you this land in which you are immigrants, all the land of Chanaan as a perpetual possession; and I will be their God.”What was the origin of circumcision and what meaning did it have for Abraham and his descendants? Anthropologists have suggested many reasons for circumcision, but to Abraham God gave a clear interpretation: “My covenant shall be in your flesh as a perpetual covenant.” Every male of Abraham’s lineage and household was to be a human witness to the covenant. But the physical mark was no good without its spiritual import:God also said to Abraham, “You shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep, between you and me and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; it shall be a token of the covenant between you and me. He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, including the slave born in your house, or bought with money from any foreigner, not of your own race. Both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money must be circumcised. My covenant shall be in your flesh as a perpetual covenant. If any male have not the flesh of his foreskin circumcised, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant. (Gen. 17:1-5, 7-14)
The Lord, your God, will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, that you may love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, and so may live. (Deut. 30:6)This circumcision, then, has more than one meaning. The physical mark identifies the male as a child of the covenant (and his family as well, for a Hebrew man was considered incomplete without a wife and issue). It is also a spiritual action, a putting off of self will and a putting on of God’s will. It is a gift from God, who frees the heart to love Him completely; but it is a gift which requires acceptance; we must circumcise our hearts, also. “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.” (Deut. 10:16) What was the gift? “. . . and so may live.” Were they in danger of death? Since Scripture positions these injunctions as occurring immediately before the Israelites crossed the Jordan and entered the Promised Land, most probably understood it to mean living peacefully and prosperously in their God-given homeland. It took the distance of centuries and an encounter with the Rock that had followed them in the desert before the Israelites could begin to understand their experience as a metaphor.
In [Christ] . . . you have been circumcised with a circumcision not wrought by hand, but through putting off the body of the flesh, a circumcision which is of Christ. . . . And you, when you were dead by reason of your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought to life along with him, forgiving you all your sins, cancelling the decree against us, which was hostile to us. Indeed, he has taken it completely away, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:11, 13-14)
Sin was not an issue for Abraham, but it was for his children who received the Commandments. From Abraham to Moses, God renewed the covenant and made it a little clearer to each generation. To Moses He gave the Ten Commandments, specifying and officially declaring His disapproval of what they instinctively knew was wrong, writing on tablets what was already engraved on each heart. But morality had never before been associated with religion. Before Revelation, religion was a matter of performing the right ceremonies and saying the right prayers in order to appease a god or gain his favor. Now God was saying that good moral behavior was necessary to gain His approval. Being circumcised now meant keeping the Commandments. But for creatures so weakened by Adam’s sin and by their own, sinlessness is impossible without God’s help; and God spoke not only of sinlessness, but also of perfection. “Walk in my presence and be perfect,” said God to Abraham. “Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) said Christ to us. Considering our lowly state and God’s profound love for us, these words must be taken not as a command but as an invitation, an empowerment.
The Heart of Jesus. Photo from Bible Art Gallery is in the public domain.
The Commandments show us that we cannot please God; but God Himself tells us how to overcome the obstacles. Sinlessness and then perfection come through associating with God, walking in His presence, realizing His relationship to us and having confidence that, since our heavenly Father is perfect, we too will become perfect. This is the kind of circumcision God wants to see in us: circumcision of the heart, the desires, the emotions, the will, the intellect, the depths of our spiritual being; cutting off all self-seeking and being cleansed of sin. The Commandments do not free us from sin; they convicted us of it. But in convicting us of it, they open the depths of God’s mercy, for without condemnation there can be no mercy. If we kept the Laws perfectly, God would owe us a reward; now that we stand condemned of sin, He is free to work upon us, to draw up our sins before our eyes and make us aware of the misery we’ve caused, of what we stand to lose and how much we need His help, gradually leading us to repentance. The Promised Land we seek is more than a geographic locale; indeed, the world is too small to contain the fullness of God’s mercy. For the spiritual children of Abraham, those crippled by Adam’s sin, saved by Noah, and circumcised in heart by the Messiah, the Promised Land lies in another dimension. We call it Heaven.
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