Circumcision is a physical cutting away of the flesh. God demanded that this surgery should be done as s sign of the Jews’ separation from the flesh. He desired to set apart the Jews for his special people; consequently, circumcision became part of the Jew’s way of life. Paul says, fulfilling this command of circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law you have become as though you had not been circumcised. Otherwise, circumcision is not a permanent condition. Yes, in the physical, it is permanent, but circumcision was an exercise to set oneself apart for God. If one violates God’s commandments, his will for your life, then you are not really setting yourself apart to God. You have rejected God’s authority in your life and replaced it with your own authority. This accepting our authority, our will, is indicative of man’s Adam spirit because the spirit of Adam will not follow God’s will at all times. Paul describes this desperate condition of failing God: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24) Sin and disobedience to God leads to death, not life. Paul is saying that circumcision of the flesh did not save him from disobeying God. His flesh was too willful, too strong, too demanding, too desirous of going its own way. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes about confronting Peter on something that Peter should not have done. Peter would not eat with the Gentiles when the Jewish brethren were with him. Peter and other Jewish Christians were following the traditions of the Jews, believing eating with Gentiles was sinful. Paul says, When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” (Galatians 2:14-16) Paul reminds Peter that true righteousness comes only through faith in the sinless one, Jesus Christ. Paul’s words were a good reminder for Peter because Peter had violated the law as much as any of the apostles when he denied Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest. He not only denied Jesus, which is a lie, and no liars will enter the kingdom of heaven, He brought the spiritual into his denial: Peter swore, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!” And immediately the rooster crowed. (Matthew 26:74) Where would the curse come from? Probably, he intimated that God would curse him if he were lying.
Paul understood that circumcision of the heart was very transitory. We might desire to do good, we might attempt to be righteous, but circumcision of the heart or any dedication that we have established to please God will not last, for whether physical or the intent of the heart, we are of the flesh, with strong fleshly desires. These desires will cause us to succumb to sin, to violate God’s authority and will for our lives, just as Peter did when he lied and when he discriminated between the Jews and the Gentiles. He was wrong in both cases, consequently, under God’s judgment, which is death: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23) Paul, the chief of sinners, knew well that only faith in Jesus Christ could save him from certain judgment. The Adam nature will be judged; therefore, the Adam nature must die, and it can only die vicariously through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. He knew that he had to believe that Jesus’ death was a substitute for his death. But praise God, he also knew that Jesus was raised to life, giving Paul an understanding that faith in Jesus brought new life to him, regardless of the Adam of the flesh. Paul knew he was a new creature, born again, fulfilling the requirements to see the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. The law could not bring about a new creature, but Jesus could through his works of salvation, not Paul’s works: circumcision and obeying the law. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. (Galatians 2:20-21, NLT) Peter was a new creature. Paul reminded him of that fact when he saw Peter attempting to place the law again on the back of the Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul knew the law would destroy the works of Christ, for people would start believing again that something other than faith in Christ could usher them into heaven. He understood that Christ alone pleases God. The Bible is clear: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12) Other attempts to get to God, other gates, will be destroyed by God’s righteousness. Christ alone is perfectly righteous and holy, for He is God. No other attempt for eternal life will be accepted by God the Father. When you look at cults and other religions, you always find man’s efforts in the middle of their attempts to find peace, eternal life. People we have seen who follow these false pathways do not find what the heart of men and women long to embrace. Only Jesus satisfies the soul. As the Bible says, For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. (1 Corinthians 3:19)
We find in Hebrews 13 that Jesus went outside of the camp. He literally went outside the camp, and He figuratively went outside the safe encampment of the Jewish religion, the Jewish culture. He was as the dead animals who bodies were dragged out of the camp after their blood was taken to be sacrificed in the temple, considered unclean. He was hung on a cross. In the society of his day, anything hung on a cross was considered accursed. Jesus died the death of a criminal, a lost human being. He died outside of the camp, and according to those who saw him, He was unclean and under a curse. We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat. Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood. So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore. For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. (Hebrews 13:10-14) He suffered outside of the camp so He could be the great deliverer of all people. He no longer belonged to just the Jews; He paid the price for sin outside of the encampment of the Jews. He was rejected by the culture of circumcision and law. They saw him as a contaminator, someone who would destroy their religious culture. But Jesus actually fulfilled every jot and tittle of their religion. He satisfied the law’s requirements. He brought absolute integrity to the circumcision ceremony. IN JESUS, the law and circumcision are no longer needed. As God, He was and is completely righteous, under the absolute authority of God the Father. Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name. (Hebrews 13:15 NLT) Consequently, today we remember that we are those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, and we now stand with hearts circumcised by the Holy Spirit. We accept that we are powerless to lift ourselves from sin, and we rejoice in the work of Christ at the cross. May the light and love of Jesus go forth anew and afresh in our lives today.
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