Circumcision was widely practiced in the ancient world, including the Egyptian and Canaanite cultures. But among these people the rite was performed at the beginning of puberty or about 12 years of age, as a sort of initiation ceremony into manhood. In contrast, the Hebrew people performed circumcision on infants. This rite had an important ethical meaning to them. It signified their responsibility to serve as the holy people whom God had called as His special servants in midst of a pagan world.
The first mention of circumcision in the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, God instructed Abraham to circumcise every male child in his household, including servants. The custom was performed on the eighth day after birth. In the early history of the Jewish people circumcision was performed by the father. But the surgical task was eventually taken over by a specialist.
God said to Abraham, "You on your part shall maintain my Covenant, yourself and your descendants after you, generation after generation. Now this is my Covenant which you are to maintain between myself and you, and your descendants after you: all your males must be circumcised." You shall circumcise your foreskin, and this shall be the sign of the Covenant between myself and you. When they are eight days old all your male children must be circumcised, generation after generation of them , no matter they be born within the household or brought from a foreigner not one of your descendants. They must always be circumcised, both those born within the household and those who have been bought. My Covenant shall be marked on your bodies as a Covenant in perpetuity. The uncircumcised male, whose foreskin has not been circumcised, such a man shall be cut off from the people: he has violated my Covenant. - Gen. 17:9-14 -
Circumcision of the Jewish male was required as a visible, physical sign of the covenant between the Lord and His people. Any male not circumcised was to be cut off from his people and regarded as a covenant breaker. Although circumcision was required by the Mosaic law, the rite was neglected during the days when the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness. Perhaps this was a sign that the nation had broken their covenant with God through their disobedience. The rite was resumed when they entered the land of Canaan, with Joshua performing the ritual on the generation born in the wilderness.
The Hebrew people came to take great pride in circumcision; in fact, it became a badge of their spiritual and national superiority. This practice fostered a spirit of exclusivism instead of a missionary zeal to reach out to other nations as God intended. A daily prayer of strict Jewish males was to thank God that he has neither a woman, a Samaritan, nor a Gentile. And Gentile came to be regarded by the Jews as the 'uncircumcision' a term of disrespect implying that non-Jewish peoples were outside the circle of God's love. The terms circumcised and uncircumcised became emotionally charged symbols to Israel and their Gentile neighbours. This issue later brought discord into the Christians fellowship of the New Testament Church.
Moses and the true prophets/God's prophets used the term circumcised as a symbol for purity of heart and readiness to hear and obey. Through Moses the Lord challenged the Israelites to submit to "circumcision of the heart" a reference to their need for repentance. God declared, "If their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt/sin, then, I will remember My Covenant." Prophet Jeremiah characterized rebellious Israel as having "uncircumcised ears and being uncircumcised in the heart."
I in my turn will set myself against them and take them to the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart will be humbled, then they will atone for their sins. I shall remember my Covenant with Jacob, and my Covenant with Isaac and my Covenant with Abraham; and I shall remember the land. - Lev. 26:41-42 -
And now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask of you? Only this: to fear Yahweh your God, to follow all His ways, to love Him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments and laws of Yahweh that for your good I lay down for you today.
To Yahweh your God belong indeed heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all its contains; yet it was on your fathers that Yahweh set his heart for love of them, and after them of all the nations chose their descendants, you yourselves, up to the present day. Circumcise your heart then and be obstinate no longer; for Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, triumphant and terrible, never partial, never to be bribed. - Deut. 10:12-17 -
To whom am I speak, whom can I urge to hear? Plainly their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen. For all these nations, and the whole House of Israel too, are uncircumcised at heart. - Jer. 6:10, 9:26 -
In the New Testament circumcision was faithfully practiced by devout Jews as recognition of God's continuing covenant with Israel. Both John the Baptist and Jesus were circumcised. - Luke 1:59, 2:21 - But controversy over circumcision divided the Christians of the early Church, which included believers from both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds. Gentile believers regarded their Jewish brethren as eccentric because of their dietary laws, Sabbath rules, and circumcision practices. Jewish believers tended to view their uncircumcised Gentile brothers as unenlightened and disobedient to the law of Moses. But apostle Paul's reconciled the Jews, Gentiles, and the Pagans with each other and with God.
A crisis erupted in the Church at Antioch when believers from Judea taught the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.' In effect, they insisted that a believer from a non-Jewish background must first become a Jew ceremonially [by being circumcised] before he could be admitted to the Christian brotherhood. This led to disagreement, and after Paul and Barnabas had a long argument with these men it was arranged that they should go up to Jerusalem and discuss the problem with the apostles and elders. - Acts 15:1-2 - A council of apostles and elders was convened in Jerusalem to resolve the matter, and after the discussion had gone on a long time, Peter stood up and addressed them.
My brothers, he said, `you know perfectly well that in the early days God made his choice among you: the pagans were to learn the Good News from me and so become believers. In fact God, who can read everyone's heart, showed his approval of them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he had to us. God made no distinction between them and us, since he purified their hearts by faith. It will only provoke God's anger now, surely, if you imposed on the disciples the very burden that neither we nor our ancestors were strong enough to support? Remember, we believe that we are saved in the same way as they are: through the grace of the Lord Jesus.' This silence the entire assembly, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul describing all the signs and wonders God had worked through them among the pagans. - Acts 15:5-12 -
When they had finished it was James who spoke. My brothers, he said, listen to me. Simeon has described how God first arranged to enlist a people for his name out of the pagans. This is entirely in harmony with the words of the prophets, since the scriptures say:
After that I shall return
and rebuild the fallen House of David
I shall rebuild it from its ruin
and restore it.
Then the rest of mankind,
all the pagans who are consecrated to my name,
and look for the Lord,
says the Lord who made this known so long ago.
`I rule, then, that instead of making things more difficult for pagans who turn to God, we send them a letter telling them merely to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has always had his preachers in every town, and is read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath.' - Acts 15:13-21 -
Then the apostles and elders decided to choose delegates to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; the whole church concurred with this. - Acts 15:22 -
This was the decision handed down by the council, and the Church broke away from the binding legalism of Judaism. Years later, reinforcing this decision Saint Paul wrote the believers at Rome that Abraham, 'the father of circumcision' was justified by faith rather than by circumcision. He declared circumcision to be no value unless accompanied by an obedient spirit.
It is a good thing to be circumcised if you keep the Law; but if you break the Law, you might as well have stay uncircumcised. If a man who is not circumcised obeys the commandments of the Law, surely that makes up for not being circumcised? More than that, the man who keeps the law, even though he has not been physically circumcised, is a living condemnation of the way you disobey the Law in spite of being circumcised and having it all written down. To be a Jew is not just to look like a Jew, and circumcision is more than a physical operation. The real Jew is the one who is inwardly a Jew, and the real circumcision is in the heart - something not of the letter but of the spirit. A Jew like that may not be praised by man, but he will be praised by God. - Rom. 2:25-29 -
Happy those whose crimes are forgiven,
whose sins are blotted out;
happy the man whom the Lord considers sinless.
Is this happiness meant only for the circumcised, or is it meant for others as well? Think of Abraham again: his faith, we say, was considered as justifying him, but when was this done? When he was already circumcised or before he had been circumcised? It was before he had been circumcised, not after; and when he was circumcised later it was only as a sign and guarantee that the faith he had before his circumcision justified him. In this way Abraham became the ancestor of all uncircumcised believers, so that they too might be considered righteous; and ancestor, also, of those who though circumcised do not rely on that fact alone, but follow our ancestor Abraham along the path of faith he trod before he had been circumcised.
The promise of inheriting the world was not made to Abraham and his descendants on account on any law but on account of the righteousness which consists in faith. If the world is only to be inherited by those who submit to the Law, then faith is pointless and the promise worth nothing. Law involves the possibility of punishment for breaking the law - only where there is no law can that be avoided. That is why what fulfills the promise depends on faith, so that it may be a free gift and be available to all of Abraham's descendants, not only those who belong to the Law but also those who belong to the faith of Abraham who is the father of all of us. As scripture says: I have made you the ancestor of many nations - Abraham is our father in the eyes of God, in whom he put his faith, and who brings the dead to life and calls into being what does not exist. - Rom. 4:7-17 -
Saint Paul also spoke of the "circumcision of Jesus Christ" a reference to His atoning death which "condemned sin in the flesh" and nailed legalism "to the cross." In essence, apostle Paul declared that the new covenant of Christ's shed blood has provided forgiveness to both Jew and Gentile, apostle Paul says, is a changed nature - a new creation that makes them one in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfillment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power. In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised: and by baptism too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.
He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay: he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession. - Col. 2:9-15 -
For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his, own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single New Man in himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God. In his own person he killed the hostility. Later he came to bring the good news of peace, peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near at hand. Through him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father.
So you no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizen like all the saints, and part of God's household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit. - Eph. 2:14-22 -
From now onward, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God's work. It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. - 2Cor. 5:16-18 -
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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