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Circumcision is an obstacle to any claim that followers of Jesus
must conform to the rituals and requirements of Torah, the Law
given through Moses at Mount Sinai.
The rite of circumcision was required in BOTH the Abrahamic covenant
and the Mosaic legislation. It was mandatory, not optional; the sign of who was
in Yahweh’s covenant and a member of His people. It served to separate Israel
from Gentile nations. Yet the New Testament declares, explicitly, that
believers are not required to be circumcised.
In Genesis 17:7-14, God declared:
“I will establish my covenant between me and you (Abraham), and
your seed after you for an everlasting covenant….This is my covenant which you
shall keep between me and you and your seed after you: every male among you
shall be circumcised.”
Circumcision became the “sign” of Yahweh’s covenant with Abraham
and his descendants; by definition, any uncircumcised male was outside of the
covenant and “cut off from his people, for he has broken my covenant” (Acts
7:8). Likewise, the later legislation at Sinai required all males to be
circumcised (Exodus 12:43-48, Leviticus 12:1-3, John 7:22-23).
(Galatians 5:2-4) - “If you get circumcised Christ will
profit you nothing. Yea, I bear witness again to every man who gets circumcised
that he is indebted to do the whole Torah. You have been set aside from Christ,
you who are justified from the Torah; you have fallen out of his grace.”
By the first century, circumcision was so integral to Israel’s
identity that it was common to categorize Jews as “the Circumcision” and
Gentiles as the “Un-circumcision” (e.g., Acts 10:45, 11:2-3,
Romans 4:9-10, Ephesians 2:11, Colossians 4:11, Titus 1:10). An
uncircumcised Jew was a contradiction in terms; to be Jewish and male was to be
circumcised. And the rite was mandatory for Gentile proselytes to Judaism.
Peter preached to Gentiles for the first time in Acts
10:1-48. Before he finished, the Holy Spirit fell on his Gentile audience.
Cornelius and others began to speak in tongues just as Jewish believers had on
the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).
Peter’s Jewish companions were amazed, not because Gentiles had
spoken in tongues but because on the uncircumcised Gentiles “also was poured
out the gift of the Holy Spirit,” a promise was given by God to Israel (Joel
2:28; Ezekiel 36:26).
Rather than require Gentile believers to be circumcised, Peter
baptized them in the water “in the name of Jesus Christ” regardless of
their uncircumcised state.
Upon his return to Jerusalem, certain Jews confronted Peter: “He went into
men uncircumcised and ate with them” (Acts 11:3). In his defense, he
recounted, “As I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as on us
at the beginning…If then God gave to them the like gift as he did also to us,
who was I that I could withstand God?”
Those in attendance “glorified God” because “to the
Gentiles also God had granted repentance unto life.” The gift of the Spirit
was THE definitive proof that God had accepted uncircumcised Gentiles into His
covenant people as Gentiles. Since God had accepted
Gentiles WITHOUT circumcision, how could Peter require it?
The issue did not die out; circumcision remained fundamental to
Jewish identity among many Jewish believers. Some stirred-up the congregation
at Antioch, claiming, “Except you get circumcised after the custom of Moses,
you cannot be saved.”
A council assembled in Jerusalem addressed the controversy and
concluded that circumcision was no longer required. Jewish believers who had
been “troubling” Gentiles were to cease and desist. Gentiles were not
required to be circumcised or come under the jurisdiction of the Torah,
only they must “abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from
things strangled and from fornication” (Acts 15:27-29).
The issue came to a head when certain Jewish believers arrived
among the churches of Galatia to compel Gentiles to get circumcised to “complete”
their faith (Galatians 3:3).
Paul’s response was swift and unequivocal; if a believer is circumcised “Christ
will profit you nothing” (5:2). Anyone who “receives circumcision
becomes a debtor to do the whole law” and places himself under its “curse”
(3:10-11, 5:3); they become “severed from Christ…fallen from grace”
(5:4).
Circumcision was no longer the defining factor of who was and was
not a member of God’s people; “in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision avails
anything nor uncircumcision; but rather faith working through love.”
Paul wrote, in Christ “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
un-circumcision” (Colossians 3:11. Also, 1 Corinthians 7:18-19).
The old categories no longer define right standing before God.
The “true circumcision” consists of those who “worship
God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh”; they are “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands”
(Philippians 3:3, Colossians 2:11).
The Torah requires that those under it must keep the
whole law (Galatians 3:10, 5:3, Deuteronomy 27:26).
The Mosaic Legislation is not a pick-and-choose menu but an all-or-nothing
proposition.
This creates a quandary for Christian proponents of Torah-keeping.
Either the early church was mistaken, or a major reassessment of the Torah was
necessary. Under the
Mosaic Law circumcision is mandatory. If uncircumcised Gentiles are members of
the covenant community and Spirit-filled without circumcision, then the old
system has been fundamentally changed, if not replaced. Proponents who claim that followers of Jesus must lead Torah-compliant
lives but who do not require circumcision, do not handle the Law of Moses honestly. With the coming of Jesus, the Old Order has reached its zenith
and a new era has dawned (Romans 10:4 – “For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes”).
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