What the Old Testament Means to Us. . No. 14

CIRCUMCISION OF THE HEART

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart. and be no longer stubborn. —Dt. 10:12

The purpose of this installment on what the Old Testament means to us is to show that while circumcision was a significant external ordinance in the religion of the Hebrew people it was its internal meaning that was important to God. This the prophets called “the circumcision of the heart,” and this is always what God has wanted in every dispensation. It is not too much to say, therefore, that when Paul in the New Testament declares that “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6) that such was always the case, OT or NT, in Moses or in Christ.

It is of course more demonstrably true that it is in Christ that God wants “faith working through love,” and it is in Christ that circumcision or the lack of it no longer matters, but it was also the case in the OT that God’s interest in the external rite of circumcision was whether it was a sign of internal renewal, either on the part of the individual or the nation of Israel, God’s covenant people.

When in Galatians 6:15 Paul repeats what he had said about circumcision not mattering anymore, he gave it a slightly different turn: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” It is a new creation that matters! The first time he made the statement it was faith working through love that mattered. These are meaningful synonyms: it is faith working through love that produces the new creature or the new creation. This is what God always desires from those in covenant relation with him, OT or NT.

Ordinances of a covenant, whether circumcision, the sabbath, sacrifices, baptism, or the eucharist, are only that, ordinances. They are signs or symbols that stand for something deeper. As important as ordinances are they are at best external expressions of what is in the heart. David in Ps. 51 was addressing this truth when he wrote, “You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, these, O God you will not despise.”

What God wants is a broken and contrite heart! David is saying in the OT what Paul says in the NT. When sacrifices and ordinances are expressions of faith working through love God is pleased. That is why David goes on to say in that same psalm, “Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness.” When God has his heart he will accept his sacrifices! That beautifully captures what religion is about. God is pleased with our baptism, our church-going, our presence at the Lord’s table, the money we give, our good works if and only if he first has our hearts. And it is the heart that matters most, not the ordinances. Otherwise we are subjects of such prophetic rebukes as, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them. . . Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.” The prophet then goes on to the theme of heart religion: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an. everlasting stream.” (Amos 5:21-24)

The point is that it has always been this way with God, and the OT and the NT do not differ all that much regarding this truth. God ordains circumcision of the flesh in the OT, but it is the circumcision of the heart that he really wants. God ordains the baptism of the body in the NT, but it is really the baptism of the heart that he desires most. Paul is saying this in Col. 2:11: “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” He goes on to relate this circumcision of Christ (a matter of the heart) to baptism of the body in water: “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

This means that just as God’s people in the OT were circumcised (in the flesh) and yet uncircumcised (in the heart), as the prophets charged, so those in the NT might be baptized (in water) and yet unbaptized (in the heart). Circumcised, yet uncircumcised; baptized, yet unbaptized. It is a dreadful analogy.

It may seem odd that God would ever have chosen circumcision as a symbol of the covenant between him and his people. What could the God of heaven have possibly cared about the cutting of the flesh from the male organ! There had to be some sign, so God chose a rite that had long been practiced by many nations of the ancient world, including Egypt. The neighbors of the ancient Hebrews all practiced circumcision except Philistia, hence “the uncircumcised Philistine” was a derogatory reference. God did not therefore “invent” circumcision for the sake of Israel.

It is the same with baptism, which was not unique to the Christian church, having long been practiced in one form or another not only in Judaism but in the Greek mystery religions as well. This shows that God was not working in a vacuum but within history, using both ideas and rites already in place, modifying them as needed, for his own purposes.

God first enjoins circumcision upon his people when he made a covenant with Abraham in Gen. 17:10-11: “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. . . It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.”

In Ex. 4:24 there is an extremely perplexing reference to circumcision. For reasons unknown to us the Lord sought to kill Moses. Zipporah, Moses’ wife, sought to appease the Lord by circumcising their son and touching Moses’ feet with the foreskin. Even though the story is perplexing it indicates the antiquity of circumcision. It also shows that it was not a priestly function. Anyone could circumcise, including women. Nor was circumcision part of the sacrificial system or even congregational. It was often a very private thing.

Circumcision remained the sign of the covenant all through the OT even though it related only to males. Those males born in the wilderness during the 40 years of wandering were circumcised under Joshua, according to Joshua 5:2. The context makes it clear that all the Hebrew males that had left Egyptian slavery had already been circumcised, showing that the rite had been practiced during all those centuries of bondage. When the passover was instituted it was mandated that no uncircumcised male could partake of it. Even a stranger who wished to join the feast would have to be circumcised (Ex. 12:48).

The rationale for circumcision remains uncertain. It is risky to conclude that God in all his wisdom created the male organ that would arbitrarily need surgery, just as it is unlikely that he would put the appendix in the body only to be removed. As far back into antiquity as Herodotus, the Greek historian, it was argued that circumcision was for sanitary purposes, but that has always been questioned, especially by modem medicine. Many physicians today no longer recommend it, unless it be for religious reasons, insisting that it inflicts unnecessary pain upon the child.

Among ancient tribes circumcision was a “coming of age” rite, and it was a tribal mark. It also may have been a vestigial remnant of human sacrifice.

As might be expected, it sometimes is used figuratively, such as the land of Canaan being “uncircumcised” (Lv. 19:23), and Moses referring to his halting speech as “uncircumcised lips” (Ex. 6:30).

It is enormously significant that the prophet Jeremiah would use this sign of the covenant in such a dramatically figurative way as “uncircumcised ears” (Jer. 6:10) and “uncircumcised in heart” (Jer. 9:26). It is used this way in Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:51: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.” But Stephen, like Jeremiah, was addressing people who had been dutifully circumcised outwardly.

This passage makes clear what is meant by the uncircumcised heart: resisting the Holy Spirit. Their fathers resisted the Spirit in OT times, Stephen tells them, and they resist the Spirit now. That uncircumcised in heart meant rebellion against God is also made clear in Dt. 10:16: “Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” We can imagine how shocking it would be to a Hebrew, steeped as he was in the tradition of circumcision, to be told to circumcise the foreskin of his heart. Here we have an echo in the OT, amidst all the sacrificial rites, what religion is all about, the heart.

To charge circumcised people with being in some way “uncircumcised” was the most degrading of accusations. It would be like telling saved people that they are lost, or baptized people that they are unbaptized. Ezekiel, for instance, in describing the worst possible fate for the king of Tyre says to him, “You shall die the death of the uncircumcised,” and he describes Elam’s fate as “going down uncircumcised into the nether world” (Ezek. 28:19;32:24). To be uncircumcised was hell itself.

So, the worst possible thing you could say to an orthodox Jew was to call him uncircumcised. When, therefore, Jeremiah tells Israel to “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts” (4:4), it is a scathing rebuke of their sinful lives. It was a call to repentance. When in 9:25 he says the Lord will punish “all those who are circumcised but yet uncircumcised,” he was saying it is not enough simply to be circumcised in the flesh. The “knife” (the Spirit of God) must touch the heart.

Circumcised yet uncircumcised! Circumcise your hearts! It is one of the great moral imperatives of the OT. It is an imperative that transcends all ages and all dispensations, for it is the essence of true religion. It is why Paul could argue in Rom. 2:26: “If a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?” In verse 25 he has already said that if one breaks the law his circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, circumcision can become uncircumcision, and uncircumcision can be regarded as circumcision. It is enough to blow your mind!

This is a powerful lesson to those of us who put an undue emphasis on the outward forms of the NT, whether baptism or the Lord’s supper. However important they are, they are but externals, and externals must reflect a devoted heart. And if the external is not exactly right, such as monthly instead of weekly Communion or sprinkling instead of immersion, might that be offset by a right heart? And how about the form being exactly right when the heart is less than devoted?

It is a weighty question as to whether we might be a “baptized yet unbaptized” people. We would feel as assaulted as Israel did if some daring prophet should cry out to us, “Be baptized in your hearts!” This is what Paul is saying in Col. 2:11 when he refers to “the circumcision of Christ,” which is of the heart, not of the flesh, internal, not external. If this is not reflected in the external form of water baptism, then such baptism is meaningless. Heart baptism must go with water baptism.

In view of all this how judgmental can we be of those who are indeed baptized in their hearts but have mistaken the outward form?

This is a crucial part of what the OT means to us, that the God of the OT is no different from the God of the NT in calling for hearts and minds devoted to him.—the Editor