Gen. 17:1-27
“It Shall Be a Sign of the Covenant”
Let me start by asking a question to those of us, who are married (but I hope this question also makes all of you, who are not married yet, to think about what getting married means): when was the last time you took a long, hard look at your wedding ring or band? Not to assess the monetary value of the ring. Not to admire the size or the sparkle or the design of the ring, as a newly engaged woman and her fawning girlfriends are prone to do. I am talking about looking at the wedding ring for all that it represents and stands for: the commitment to love and cherish our spouse until death do us part, both in good times and bad times--not only in times of health and laughter but also in times of sickness and sorrow, not only in times of prosperity and fortune but also in times of poverty and misfortune and even tragedy. Its ramifications are just awesome and too many to count! Think about the immediate changes that come about! Once married, husband and wife start living together as a new family, sharing the same family name, same checking account, same house, same bed, same utensils, same toothpaste and on and on! They function as one unit, as one team. The glory of one is the glory of the other and the same of one is the shame of the other. If one is not happy, neither can the other be. Nothing can affect just one spouse without affecting the other. And think about all that you have gone through together as husband and wife because you are husband and wife and because you have children together and now you are mom and dad! So do you look at your ring from time to time and marvel at all the things and changes that have happened to you because you made that wedding vow and pledge to each other through that ring? And do you look at it when things get tough to refresh your memory and renew your commitment to your marriage? That is why we exchanged the rings, isn’t it? It is a sign of our marriage covenant to remind us of the sanctity and the seriousness of that covenant! And oh, how much we needed that sign, fickle and inconstant that we are!
God did it once before with His common grace when He gave the rainbow as a sign of His covenant with man and nature. God is doing it again, now with His saving grace in giving a sign of His covenant with Abraham and his descendants. The sign God gave was the circumcision. Obviously, He gave this sign to remind, to help Abraham and his descendants to remember, His covenant with them. What particular things was this sign designed to remind them of?
It was to remind them of their need for God’s redemption.
Take a look at the particular features of this sign. It consisted of cutting
off the foreskin. [Although the actual verb “cut off” is not used here in
conjunction with the circumcision, it is clear from Ex. 4:25. There we are
told, “Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s
foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, ‘Surely you are a bridegroom
of blood to me!’” What Zipporah did there was
obviously circumcising her son by cutting off her son’s foreskin.] What was the
significance of cutting off the foreskin? The verb, “cut off”, is used in v.
14: “But an uncircumcised male
who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut
off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Do you see the relationship between the two acts of cutting off here? If one
did not cut off the foreskin, he himself was to be cut off from the covenant
community. That is, if he did not have his foreskin cut off, he became the
foreskin to the covenant community, as it were, and thus had to be cut off:
what the foreskin was to the male, the uncircumcised sinner was to the covenant
community. The implication was clear: the foreskin represented sin. So, if the
male did not have his foreskin cut off, he was still with his sin and he must
be cut off from the covenant community to preserve its purity.
What this ritual of cutting off the
foreskin symbolizes is quite clear: we are corrupt with sin and we desperately
need to be rid of sin so we can be saved from being cut off ourselves. But
notice to whom this ritual is applied: to all the males, including eight-day
old infant boys (v. 12)! What does that imply? Even newborn children are in
need of forgiveness and redemption! What a powerful support for the doctrine of
Original Sin! What is the doctrine of Original Sin? It is not so much about
Adam’s original sin as it is about the effect of that original sin in Adam and
all of his descendants. As our Shorter Catechism says, Original Sin “consists
in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the
corruption of [our] whole nature”, from which all our actual and individual sins
proceed (WSC 18).
It is not, then, that we are born
pure and innocent and become gradually corrupted through evil social
influences. No, as David confessed, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). It is a difficult truth to swallow,
that even our newborn babes are born in sin, in need of salvation. We cannot
say that all children, who die in their infancy, automatically go to heaven.
But nor does the doctrine of Original Sin say that all children, who die in
their infancy, are condemned to hell. As in the case of John the Baptist, who
leaped with joy in his mother’s womb when he heard Mary’s greeting, we believe
that the Holy Spirit can regenerate even unborn children through their prenatal
hearing of the gospel. So we believe that the souls of all the elect children
are saved. And we trust that God is more gracious in this than we hope.
As difficult as it may be to many (and I say this with all due humility), the total
depravity of all men, even of children, is a biblical truth. Our society has a
hard time understanding that what is true often has little to do with what we
like or what we prefer. But we see many examples of this all the time--if we do
not often see them in ourselves, we certainly see them in others, who are in
denial and whose denial frustrates us to no end. Think of the alcoholics and
drug addicts. Think of their family members, who turn a blind eye to the
problem of their loved ones. At least when we see others and their denial and
rationalization and self-deception, we realize that we cannot define what
constitutes truth according to our image and our preference. The history of man
after the Fall--what instigated the Great Flood, the
But we must note also the corporate
dimension of this sign. God told Abraham that, if anyone was not circumcised,
he had to be cut off from his people. There we see the corporate aspect
of this covenant sign: God intended to form a covenant community, which was
made up of all those, who were circumcised (and those who belonged to them).
This covenant sign of circumcision had the individual dimension, of course: as
it was applied to each individual, it testified to each individual’s need of
salvation. But the circumcision was not just an individual affair: it was a
communal affair as well. Through it, new members were brought into the covenant
community. At this stage of redemptive history, the covenant community
consisted of Abraham’s household. And his household consisted not only of
Abraham’s immediate, nuclear family but also of all the males including his
household servants and their children (vv. 12-13). The circumcision was to
serve as an official sign of one’s membership in the community.
Here we are reminded again that we
cannot have a proper relationship with God without having a proper relationship
with His people in His covenant community. We are not saying that loving God is loving others, or loving others is loving God. God
is not other people and the two cannot be confused. Identifying God as other pepole is what we call idolatry. But as we often say in
systematic theology, we must distinguish but we must not separate. Loving
others does not necessarily mean that we love God. (Again, the idea of idolatry
is applicable here.) But we cannot truly love God without loving others: “If
anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John
But we must
not lose sight of certain limitations of this covenant community marked by the
covenant sign of circumcision, which also had its own limitations. The
circumcision was a sign, a symbolic act. Our sin is not concentrated on our
foreskin and we do not rid ourselves of sin by cutting off the foreskin. Only
if it were that simple! Our sin is rooted deeply in our soul. No mutilation of
our body can do away with our sinful desires and inclinations. So later on we
see Moses pleading with the sons of
So then,
just because one received this symbol, it did not mean that he possessed the
reality that the symbol pointed to: he could have his foreskin cut off without
having his heart circumcised. One’s physical membership in the community did
not guarantee his redemption from sin. This was demonstrated particularly in
God’s mandate to circumcise every male in the household, including Ishmael.
What did we learn in the previous chapter? Abram and Sarai
grew impatient and resorted to their devising to bring about the fruition of
God’s promise. So Sarai convinced Abram to go into
Hagar and bear a son for her. And Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. What was God’s response?
The Lord says in v. 19, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you
shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an
everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.” With these words, the Lord
in effect cut off Ishmael from His covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Yes,
God would bless Ishmael, too, but in a different covenant altogether (v. 20).
Even though Ishmael’s fate was clearly known as having no spiritual part in the
covenant, still he was to receive the sign of the Abrahamic covenant as long as
he remained under the headship of Abraham.
Here we see
how wrong it is to confuse the sign with what it signifies, how wrong it was
for the Jews to boast in their circumcision. It did distinguish them from the
rest of the world and it did give them access to the oracles and ordinances of
God, to the various means of grace. But it did not mean that their hearts were
circumcised for the redemption of their souls. And we too must resist the
temptation to do the same, grounding our standing before God in any religious
ritual. We dare not neglect the ordinances of God (such as the Sacraments). And
if God instituted certain rituals, there must be very good reasons and we must
not ignore them or disparage them. But they must be respected in their proper
place and order. The rituals, such as the circumcision, were not designed to ensure
and guarantee forgiveness and salvation. They pointed to something greater and
their importance lay in this function of pointing God’s people to that reality
and in doing so connecting them to it. But if they did not connect them to the
greater reality automatically, what brought about that true connection?
This is
where we see the importance of the timing of the giving of this covenant sign.
Paul brings out the significance of the timing in Rom. 4. We read in vv. 7-12,
“‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’ Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness [Gen. 15:6]. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”
You can see
how carefully and wonderfully God arranged the events in Abraham’s life to
communicate an important theological message. God justifies Abram on the basis
of his faith (Gen. 15:6) before his circumcision. You can see why the
timing was so important! Thus God showed beyond doubt that justification is by
faith, not by any observance of religious ritual. In fact, the circumcision was
of no benefit without faith. For it was through faith, which the Spirit of God
produced in His elect people, that the circumcision of the foreskin was
connected to the circumcision of the heart. [If the heart is the problem, how
can it produce this faith, which brings about such a radical transformation of
the heart? The Spirit of God must create this in our hearts.] The Jews, who
received the sign of circumcision, could not forget this all-important lesson
that they were to be justified by faith and not by their circumcision. And you
can see how hugely important this would be for us Gentiles! This order of
events--justification by faith first and then the circumcision--would give the
Gentiles the hope of having Abraham as their father as well and thus be
partakers of the covenant blessings of Abraham! If Abraham, the father of
But we must
not understand this faith as some kind of mystical power, which produces this
powerful transformation of the heart. Faith cannot exist without content: we do
not just believe; we must have something to believe (in).
Here we see
the final thing that the covenant sign of circumcision was designed to remind
us of. It was not just a reminder of our need of salvation and how we needed to
get rid of sin for salvation. It was not just a reminder of our need to belong
to God’s covenant community. If it stopped there, we should be greatly
discouraged and remain hopeless. How do we get rid of our sin for good and
secure our place in the community of saints? But this is what we must not
forget: the covenant sign of circumcision was at the most basic level a sign
of God’s covenant grace. As such, it also served as God’s pledge to bring
about what it signified! It pointed to the ultimate circumcision, which would
bring about our salvation and our eternal inclusion in the
In short,
Paul refers to the death of Jesus Christ as that ultimate circumcision! That
means that Jesus took upon Himself all of our sin and guilt and became the
Foreskin, as it were, to be cut off! “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the
law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is
hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to
the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal.
Because the
true Circumcision was made in the death of Jesus Christ, the sign of
circumcision is no longer necessary. But God, knowing our weakness, has
graciously given us another sign, replacing the circumcision: baptism. A bloody
sign (the circumcision) is now replaced with a bloodless sign, for there is no
longer any need to shed blood! No more cutting off the flesh! The blood, which
can wash away all our sins has been spilt once for
all.
Oh, how
much greater is the assurance we have in this new covenant sign! This sign does
not just offer us a promise but its fulfillment! It points us back to the
historical fulfillment of God’s redemption in the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ! As surely as Christ died and rose again, so sure and irrevocable
is the salvation represented and offered in it! Not only that, this sign is
administered in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
This sign comes with all the glory and power and majesty of the triune God, all
the sovereignty and faithfulness and efficacy of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit! How wonderful and glorious!
But we must
not forget that, even this sign, comes with the same charge: Remember! Children,
you were all baptized as infants, as the Jewish infants of old. You know what
that means: you too need forgiveness for your sins, you too need salvation. It
is reminding you and calling you to place your faith in Jesus Christ as your
parents have done. When you received your baptism--although you were too young
to remember your baptism ceremony--God offered to you His forgiveness and
salvation in His beloved Son. So, when you make your profession of faith in due
time, we will all rejoice to see God bringing to fruition His good promise to
you. And you are to remember all these things whenever you witness new babies
get baptized because that is exactly what you went through.
You adult
members, remember what this sign signifies. How awesome and pervasive are the
ramifications of your baptism! If marrying another person
brings about so much change, how about being united with Christ? He, who
died for our sins, also rose again from the dead as the Lord of glory. If so, our
life can no longer be the same. We have died to the world and sin. We have
taken up the name of Christ. We and Christ are now one team. His glory is our
glory. His life is our life. And our shame is His shame. Our suffering is His suffering
and His suffering is ours. As husbands and wives can no longer make decisions
without being conscious of their spouse, we can no longer live our lives
without being always conscious of Christ--His glory, His reputation, His desire
and His goal for our life. The life Christ has earned for us is a life of
eternal union with God, of God’s abundant, precious blessings in the heavenly places.
So let us remember our baptism. Let us remember our baptism especially when we
are faced with temptations and difficult times. Let us remember how God pledged
His love and faithfulness to us and how we have pledged our loyalty to Him. And
let us also pray that God would remind us of our baptism as God grants us more
children and adult baptisms in our midst! One day we will enjoy to the fullest
measure all the blessings of our union with our God in that glorious heaven!
© Copyright 2008 by Jeong Woo "James" Lee
All Rights Reserved.