To Borrow a Term

In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. - Colossians 2:11-12

I've been thinking about the significance of this passage since last Sunday. Not all the time obviously. There is a limit to how much a man can think about circumcision. Anyway, the fairly straightforward indicative remark made by Paul is that when you are joined to Christ by faith (i.e. "in Him"), you are considered circumcised.

Circum-what? As a male "Gentile" this is a slightly odd thing to think about, so I can only imagine how strange it must be for a woman "in Christ" to consider herself circumcised. Truth be told, none of us probably think of it very much. But while we're of course not called to consider (nor indeed undergo) circumcision in the physical way, Paul appears to place a lot of significance on the "circumcision without hands" that has been performed on our hearts on account of our union with Christ.

In fact -- and here is crux of my week-long musings -- this circumcision without hands seems for Paul to have always been the true meaning of circumcision. Forget about having a fraction of Mr Knish snipped. That was never the sign of who truly belonged to God. Paul affirms this loud and clear in Romans 2:

"For circumcision [of the flesh] indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."

No wonder Jews didn't take too kindly to Paul's teaching - "No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly..." Had Paul asked you to show that you were a Jew, and had you the cajones to show him your circumcision of the flesh, he would have probably said, "So what? That means nothing to me, and more importantly, it means nothing to God. Also, please never do that again. It's just weird". For God, and thus for Paul, circumcision is not nor has it ever been merely outward and physical.

Finally, and this is what I have been pondering: Had Paul asked you to show that you were a Jew, and had you never been circumcised nor gone through any of the other external rigamorole, yet you demonstrated a life lived by the power of the Spirit through faith (which looks like a life in harmony with God's law), then he would have proclaimed you a "Jew". What a role reversal! "Jews" are not actually Jews, whereas Gentiles can be true Jews, who get their praise (where the word "Jew" originates from) from God. Later on in Romans Paul declares that Gentiles have been engrafted to the "olive tree" (11:17ff.) which began with Abraham and the other patriarchs, thus giving extra credence to what he swiftly mentions in chapter 2.

To tie all of this together, the circumcision discussed in Colossians is not some rite of passage to become part of a new religion which finds its origins in Jesus, or even Paul. Jews (based on Paul's definition of a Jew in Romans 2) didn't have one circumcision while we Christians now have another. To be sure, in Christ we are new creations, and members of a new covenant. However, this covenant isn't new in the sense of separate from the one established with Abraham. It is new in the sense of being the definitive fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant; we now live in the age of the Climax of the Covenant, to borrow Tom Wright's term. Our "circumcision of Christ" means that we are in fact true sons of Abraham and heirs to all of the blessing that were promised to him. (As an aside, is there any greater motivation to get immersed in the Hebrew Scriptures than this?) We are true Jews, and yet we are not Jews at all. Nor are we Gentiles. For there is neither Jew nor Gentile in the family joined with the Messiah Jesus, but we are all one in Him.

What is the fruit of this sonship, this belonging? What does it look like to be a covenant member? Is the proof in the penis? By no means! It looks like a heart moved by the Spirit of God and enabled to fulfill the law by loving God and loving others; it looks like a life characterised by The Jesus Creed, to borrow Scot McKnight's term (I'm just borrowing terms all over the shop, amn't I?).