Severed & Saved

Posted on Aug 8, 2015 in Faith Focus |

Hi everyone,

Recently we started “subscribing” to this e-mail post called “Today I found out” that presents articles designed to provide all sorts of interesting facts about a variety of subjects. A little while back, one of the articles was on circumcision from which I have provided a brief excerpt below:

“Having served variously as a mark of virility, servility and gentility, circumcision has throughout the centuries worn many symbolic hats. While anthropologists disagree as to the definitive origins of circumcision, the earliest hard evidence comes from the first ancient Egyptian mummies of considerable vintage, around 2300 BC. That being said, Egyptian paintings date circumcision to centuries prior, depicting ritual circumcision as prerequisite to entering the priesthood contention remains as to whether circumcision was a sign of pride rather than prejudice among the ancient Egyptian world. While popular among the elite, forced circumcision was inflicted on captured Phoenician and Jewish slaves as a badge of dishonor, more practical, or rather, less lethal than castration.

Whatever its initial origins, by 1800 BC the Jews were practicing circumcision for religious reasons, in deference to God’s religious injunction to Abraham as contained in the Torah. ’Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. Genesis 17:10-11’.”

I found it interesting to consider how this act had for many cultures become a matter of pride. And yet, when we consider how it is referenced in the New Testament, we find a circumcision that is not a matter of the flesh, nor human pride, but a circumcision done…..by God.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 3 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” – Colossians 2:8-15

So…why am I sharing all this? Because today, as in Paul’s day, many people still believe that a person must jump through all sorts of legalistic religious hoops in order to be approved by God. How wonderful the Christian Gospel is that tells us that it is God who does the act…..the “removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” (NAS).   Yes, we can rejoice because God severed us from our sin soaked old self and made us alive in Him. As God’s word says, there is “no condemnation in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), and this is certainly not a matter for human pride.  No, it was because of human pride and our rebellion that we had to undergo the true circumcision, the one done by Jesus Christ, that all of our sins may be forgiven. So today, as we go out into a world that tells us that we must do things to earn God’s favor, be ready to say with confidence, “My sin is gone, and I’ve been set free for God has cleansed me”. No wonder we should not boast in anything but the cross of Christ.

–For Him,

Rob Ladonne

August 8, 2015

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