|
The Mark of Abraham’s Family
God called Abram from modern day
Iraq (Ur of the Chaldeas) into a land called Canaan. He promised
him a personal blessing, a national blessing and a universal
blessing (Gen. 12:1-3). God's promised blessings were tied to a
special land. That land stretched from Egypt on the south to the
Tigress Euphrates River on the north. This land today includes a
part of Egypt, modern day Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.
God began to unfold this promise
to Abram by the miraculous birth of one child, Isaac. God
rejected Abraham’s fleshly methods to produce the promised heir,
but God brought Isaac to life. God then gave to Abraham and to
his people a physical sign that was to remind them of exactly
how God’s promise of Isaac came to be. God gave them the sign
of circumcision.
The Ritual of Circumcision
“Now when Abram was
ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said
to him, ‘I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be
blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you,
And I will multiply you exceedingly. Abram fell on his face,
and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My
covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many
nations.’” (Genesis 17:1-4)
Just before God gave Abraham the
sign of circumcision, He changed his name!
“No longer shall your name be
called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I will
make you the father of a multitude of nations.” (Gen. 17:5)
The Hebrew name “Avram”
means “father of the high place.” The high place was the name
of the pyramid in Ur of the Chaldeas. This is where the moon god
of Ur was worshipped. It was the name that his father Terah,
who was a moon god worshipper, had given him. Abraham had grown
up as a pagan.
-
But your name shall be
Abraham
Abraham means “father of
multitudes.” From the father of the high place to the father
of many nations was a miracle wrought by God.
Abraham would be a father of
many different nationalities!
Notice the continuance of the
little phrase, "I will.” Everything that happened to
Abraham was to be carried out by God alone. God does not
say, "Abraham if you will be faithful to me or if you do
this or that, then I will do this.” The fulfillment of this
promise depended solely upon God. Remember the meaning of
the blood covenant of
Genesis 15:7-19.
-
"I will" make nations from you
Abraham’s physical
descendants would be the source of these nations. Abraham
would have one special physical descendant, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Through Him all the nations of the earth will be
blessed.
"To be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to
you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a
stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession
and I will be their God.”
This is a momentous occasion. It
is extremely important! In the founding of the race of the Jews,
a permanent training aid was established for all future
generations.
“Keep” means to guard
something of extreme value.
God is instructing Abraham
and his future family to guard this covenant promise. The
covenant promise was to be number one on their scale of
values. God then repeated Himself. When God repeats, we
must pay close attention.
Male is the Hebrew word
zakar. It is taken from the verb zaker, which
means “to remember." Every male child was going to a
memorial child. This was to become a means to stimulate
their memory. What was the memorial child to cause the
people to remember? In a broad sense, they were to remember
the Abrahamic covenant. But in a more detailed sense, it was
to remind the Jews that Abraham had failed to produce an
heir acceptable to God by means of his flesh. This resulted
in Ishmael, who became the source of perpetual conflict. God
then allowed Abraham to grow very old and incapable of
physically producing a child. At that point, Abraham
separated himself from his fleshly attempt and zeroed in on
the source of His blessing, God. He walked by faith alone
before God. At that point, God gave him a miracle heir,
Isaac.
Abram and the males in his
house and all the male children in his future family were to
cut away the dead flesh from that which perpetuates the
flesh to remember that Abraham did not succeed by his
flesh.
Sign is the Hebrew word,
oth. It means a sign of memory. A sign is something that
could be seen in order to reveal the unseen (something in
the spiritual realm). Circumcision was to be a sign to
stimulate the memory of Abraham’s failure and faith. What
was the spiritual truth to bring into the memory of those in
the future?
Abraham was to remember that
it was God alone who walked between the sacrifices (Gen.
15:12-15). God alone was going to keep His promise to
Abraham. It was this truth and not the symbol that was to be
remembered.
In a detailed sense, it was to
remind the Jews for thousands of years to obey God by faith and
that faith alone would bring the fulfillment of the promise from
God. Circumcision became an ongoing memorial sign to the Jews
that the power of God is greater than any power on earth. God
alone can give life to the dead. With God nothing shall be
impossible. When God makes a promise, He keeps it!
Remembered the Ritual, Forgot
the Reason
Israel remembered to perform the
ritual act, but they forgot the spiritual reason behind it.
“Circumcise yourselves to the
LORD, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.”
(Jer. 4:4)
Notice what Jeremiah meant by his
use of the word "circumcision. God was asking them to open up
the eyes of their minds. Their minds needed circumcising! It
was the method that God used to call the Jews to obedience.
It was not the ritual that God
intended that the Jews remember, but the reality behind the
ritual. Circumcision was to remind the Jews to walk before God
by faith, like their forefather Abraham. But they soon forgot
the faith part of the ritual of circumcision. Circumcision
became just a ceremony that caused the Jew to become arrogant
and proud. It became a religious symbol that separated them, in
their own eyes, from the pagan Gentiles that lived around them.
The mark of circumcision made them proud, and they flaunted it.
The first deacon, Stephen,
described the Jewish nation during Christ's day:
“You stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy
Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” (Acts 7:51)
The Jews had rejected God’s
Messiah sent to them. They would not even listen to God.
The Reality of Circumcision
Is there a real meaning behind
the physical symbol that is meant for us? Yes, there is!
“For we are the circumcision,
who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in (have confidence
in) Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
(Phil. 3:3)
Believers today are living out
the true meaning of circumcision. How? When we believe in
Christ, we are baptized into Him. Now notice how our baptism
into Christ fulfills the Abrahamic covenant to us!
“And you are complete in Him,
who is the head of all principality and power. 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.” (Col. 2:10-11)
Literally the Greek says, "in Him
you have been made complete.” I assume complete means
complete, lacking nothing. Principality is rule; power is
authority. Upon being placed into union with Christ, we become
identified with His death and His resurrection. At
that point we were freed from the authority of sin.
“In Christ” God separated us from
the authority of our flesh. That is the reality of the symbol of
circumcision. Sin no longer has authority over us at all.
The circumcision in Genesis 17:11
was a sign for the birth of a new race and meant that this race
would always exist. The baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost also
marks the beginning of a new race - the body of Jesus Christ.
“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. And you, being
dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven
you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of
requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.
And He has taken it out of the way (that is the curse
imposed by the law) having nailed it to the cross.” (Col.
2:12-14)
Christ cancelled out the debt of
sin that we owe. Circumcision for believers today is a spiritual
truth, not a physical experience. Our spiritual position in
Christ has separated us from the authority of the flesh (Rom.
6). We are to make this truth a reality in our lives by yielding
to the Lord and not to the authority of the flesh.
Sources
New
American Standard Bible
Brown,
Driver, and Briggs Hebrew Definitions
Robert B.
Thieme, Jr.
Bible
Knowledge Commentary; Old Testament
A. T.
Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
|
