The Nature of Circumcision

The Nature of Circumcision

“He that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every
male throughout your generations” (17.12a). We know what
constitutes circumcision: a piece of skin is cut away from the body
and thrown out. But why does God make a human body and then
demand that a piece of its skin be cut off? When a child is born, is he
not God’s beautiful creation? Indeed, he is. Then why, if God gives
life to this child, does He require man to perform an additional work
of cutting off a piece of skin? Why does God himself not effect
circumcision upon the child before he is born? Why does He instead
require man to cut away this skin? And why must a child be
circumcised on the eighth day. Well, we know that the eighth day is
representative of the day of the resurrection of our Lord. And hence,
to be circumcised on the eighth day means to cut off the lusts and
passions of our flesh through the resurrection power of Christ. The
basic meaning of circumcision is thus the cutting off of the lusts and
passions of the flesh.

Yet why does not God require a child to be circumcised on the
day he is born rather than on the eighth day of his life? Here we may
see the difference between creation and redemption, between the
natural and the resurrected. According to our understanding of the
gospel, God does not make anyone a Christian the moment he is
born—that is to say, He does not give that one a spiritual life. Even a
child born of the best parents must be born again, for upon that child
there is only God’s creative power and not His redemptive power as
well. He is created by God, but he does not have God’s life which is
resurrection life. The most beautiful creature in the world is a newborn
baby. He seems so innocent. Yet under God’s old covenant, if
he had not—naturally speaking—been circumcised on the eighth
day, he would have been cut off from God’s people. Spiritually
speaking, under the new covenant of God, the same thing would be
true if he were not circumcised in Christ.

Perhaps you are naturally good and gentle and undisturbed by
sins. You may even consider yourself morally superior to other
people. If, though, you have not been circumcised, you are not
numbered among God’s people. If a new-born baby needs to be
circumcised, how much more do you and I need to be circumcised?
If a child must be circumcised on the eighth day, how much more
must you and I be circumcised after we have been on earth for
several decades? Who can measure how defiled our hands and feet
are? Ought we not to be circumcised on the eighth day? No one can
meet God in his natural state. No matter how much of the gospel we
have heard, we will not escape perishing if we are not circumcised;
for man will indeed perish if left to his natural state.