“Every male throughout your generations, he that is born in the
house, or bought with money of any foreigner that is not of thy seed”
(17.12b). In the old days two kinds of people needed to be
circumcised: the one kind consisted of those who had been born in
the house, and the other, of those who had been bought with money.
Whether they were born or were purchased, they had to be
circumcised. Praise God, we of today have been born of God as well
as bought or redeemed by God. For notice the following two sets of
verses from the New Testament which bear this out: (1) “Knowing
that ye are redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold,
from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but
with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,
even the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1.18,19); “ye were bought with a
price” (1 Cor. 6.20). These verses speak of our being purchased and
redeemed by God. And (2) “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”
(John 3.6); “whosoever is begotten of God” (I John 3.9). These
verses clearly bespeak the fact of our being born of God.
We thank the Lord that though God has not made a covenant with
us non-Jews, we Gentiles nonetheless have the possibility of being
circumcised: “When a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep
the passover to Jehovah, let all his males be circumcised, and then let
him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the
land” (Ex. 12.48). This passage informs us that a Gentile stranger
may also be circumcised. If there is any reader who has not yet
believed in the Lord Jesus, let me say that you too can be
circumcised today if you so will, and can be like the other children of
God today who have been circumcised in Christ.
