Circumcision and the Nations

By now a thoughtful reader may be uneasy. If the Torah still stands, if its purity still guards the holy, and if the apostles still kept it, then surely one thing follows: every believer from the nations must be circumcised. That was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, and it is hard to see how anyone could claim to keep the Torah while leaving it out.

The question is fair, and it is not new. In the first-century church it brought “great dissension and debate” (Acts 15:2). Some argued it with real conviction, holding that whoever keeps the Torah must take the sign. The apostles answered no. Their answer, however, was not that the Torah no longer mattered. Their answer came from the Torah itself.

Whose Sign It Was

Go back to where circumcision begins, in God’s covenant with Abraham:

Genesis 17:11-13 And you shall circumcise the flesh (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr') of your foreskin, and it shall be for a sign (ot) of a covenant (berit בְּרִית ber-eeth') between me and you. And a son of eight days shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money from any son of a foreigner, who is not of your seed. He that is born in your house, and he that is bought with your money, must surely be circumcised; and my covenant (berit) shall be in your flesh (basar) for an everlasting covenant (berit).

The text draws a boundary, and then repeats it more pointedly: “he that is born in your house, and he that is bought with your money.” The measure is not the whole human race, nor even everyone who believes in the God of Abraham. The measure is “your house,” the household of Abraham.

Even the foreign servant who was circumcised did not receive the sign as a member of the nations. He received it because he had become part of Abraham’s house. The act is mul מוּל mool, to circumcise, and the sign it leaves, an ot, marks a berit (בְּרִית), a covenant given to one family line and to everyone counted as belonging to that family.

What, then, of a foreigner who simply lived among Israel? The Torah speaks to that very case:

Exodus 12:48 And when a sojourner sojourns with you and would make a Passover to the LORD, let every male belonging to him be circumcised, and then let him draw near to do it, and he shall be as a native of the land; but no uncircumcised person shall eat of him.

Look at the shape of the sentence. It does not say that every sojourner in the land must be circumcised. It says that if a sojourner “would make a Passover to the LORD,” the males of his house are to be circumcised, and then he may draw near to eat it. This is a condition attached to one act. It is not a demand laid on every person of every nation, and nowhere is it called the price of salvation.

A Crest for One House

Think of an old noble family whose crest, a coat of arms, was granted by the king long ago. The children born into that family carry it, and so does anyone formally adopted into the household. It is their identity, and the king gave it.

Now suppose a member of that family went to every allied nation and insisted that each of them paint his family’s crest on their shields. He would believe he was honoring the king, but in truth he would be overruling him. The king granted the crest to one house. To press it on everyone is to add to the king’s order, and to take from those nations the place the king had given them.

That is what happened in Acts 15:

Acts 15:1 Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."

“Unless you are circumcised … you cannot be saved.” At the council Peter answered that Jew and Gentile alike are saved through grace (Acts 15:11). Here we can see why that answer was faithful to Moses and no departure from him. The Torah never commanded the nations to be circumcised, and it never made circumcision a condition of salvation. To make it one would break a plain commandment:

Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding (tzivvah צָוָה tsaw-vaw') you, and you shall not take away from it, to keep the commandments (mitzvah מִצוָה mits-vaw') of the LORD your God which I am commanding (tzivvah) you.

“You shall not add … and you shall not take away.” We usually quote this verse against those who drop commandments, but it cuts just as sharply the other way. To add a commandment God did not give is as forbidden as to remove one He did give.

Paul’s Sentence That Settles It

Paul wrote a sentence to the Corinthians that sounds at first like a contradiction:

1 Corinthians 7:18-19 Was anyone called already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove it; has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is everything.

He writes, “Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised,” and then, in the next breath, “keeping the commandments of God is everything.”

Put the two halves together, and the reasoning is simple. Keeping God’s commandments is everything, and a man called in uncircumcision is not to be circumcised. For that man, therefore, circumcision is not one of God’s commandments. Paul is not loosening the Torah here. He is reading its boundary correctly.

He gives the other side of the matter in Galatians:

Galatians 5:3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole nomos νόμος nom'-os(law).

In Paul’s eyes circumcision was never a small extra, a badge added for good measure. It is the sign of a covenant, and the man who receives it takes on everything that covenant carries. That is why it could not be pressed on the nations as a condition, in the way the men from Judea were pressing it.

Abraham Before the Knife

There is an older reason still, and Paul points to it:

Romans 4:11 And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) of faith that he had while in uncircumcision, so that he might be the father of all who believe while in uncircumcision, so that righteousness might be credited to them also,

Abraham was counted righteous “while in uncircumcision.” The sign came afterward, as a seal on a righteousness that was already his by faith. That is why he can be “the father of all who believe while in uncircumcision.” The nations who believe have Abraham as their father without taking the sign of his household.

The circumcision God asks of everyone was always a circumcision of the heart, and the Torah said so first:

Deuteronomy 30:6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh), for the sake of your life (chai חַי khah'-ee).

The prophets pressed the point hard:

Jeremiah 9:24-25 Behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, that I will punish all the circumcised in uncircumcision: upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the sons of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who are clipped at the corner of the hair, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.

In most English Bibles these are verses 25 and 26. Judah is listed alongside Egypt and Edom, and the reason given is startling: “all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.” The outward sign without the inward one did not protect them.

Paul says the same:

Romans 2:29 but the one who is inwardly Jewish is a Jew, and circumcision is of the kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain), by pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) and not by the written letter — whose praise is not from men but from God.

When Paul writes “circumcision is of the kardia(heart, soul-domain), by pneuma(spirit),” he is not announcing a new Christian idea to replace an old Jewish one. He is repeating Moses and Jeremiah.

Timothy and Titus

Watch how Paul lived this out. He took Timothy, whose mother was Jewish (Acts 16:1), and circumcised him:

Acts 16:3 Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

With Titus, however, he refused:

Galatians 2:3 But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

To a casual reader this looks inconsistent, as though Paul changed his practice to suit his audience. The truth is the opposite. Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother, and Paul circumcised him, as Luke says, “because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.” Titus was a Greek, and he did not bear the sign. In both cases Paul followed the Torah’s own measure, “your house.”

The claim that a Gentile who keeps the Torah must be circumcised turns out, then, to add to the Torah something that is not in it. That falls under Deuteronomy 4:2 just as surely as the claim that the Torah need not be kept at all.

We have now walked the whole length of this book. Before we close it, we need to step back far enough to see the building all at once.