8- The commandment of male circumcision in the Old and New Testaments

St-Takla.org Image: An ancient icon of the Baptism of Jesus by St. John the Baptist. صورة في موقع الأنبا تكلا: أيقونة أثرية تصور عماد السيد يسوع المسيح بيد القديس يوحنا المعمدان.

God does not lay down His commandments haphazardly, nor does He change His teachings.

When He instituted circumcision, for a spiritual meaning which probably was not understood. But they understood the outward symbol.

The severing and the death of a small bodily part, was a symbol of the death with Christ in baptism.

(Rom 6:4) Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Hence the “bodily death” that symbolised by circumcision is current and is everlasting. Hence the commandment stands, but has assumed its spiritual intent, rather than the literal.

The Lord Jesus did not abolish the Law, but applied the spirit of the law.

He did not abolish the Sabbath, but explained actual application and meaning of the rest.

Nor did He abolish the death of a part of the body through circumcision, but explained how death was fulfilled in a spiritual sense through baptism, for which circumcision had become the symbol.

(Col 2:11-12) 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, {12} 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.