The true circumcision
From the article on “Circumcision” in the New International Dictionary of the NT, Hans-Cristoph Hahn, Bad Boll.
In the early Christian communities there was a tension between the believers from among the circumcised, i.e. the Jewish Christians (Acts 10:45; cf. Acts 11 :2; Rom. 3: 30; Gal. 2:12; Col. 4:11; Tit. 1:10), and those called uncircumcision, i.e. the Gentile Christians (Eph. 2: 11; cf. Acts 11: 3; Rom. 4:1 0; 1 Cor. 7:18). These two groups, associated respectively with Peter and Paul, constantly clashed, because the Jewish Christians insisted that circumcision was necessary for salvation:
“Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved”
(Acts 15: 1; cf. 15:5, where circumcision and the keeping of the Law are linked).
James and the elders of the Jerusalem church remonstrated with Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, because they had heard rumors that he had taught that not merely Gentile Christians but also Jewish Christians were free from the law of circumcision (Acts 21:21). After all Paul made “freedom from the” law through the death and resurrection of Christ a central point in his proclamation, and his rejection of Jewish zeal for the Law is clearly stated. Paul stressed that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been entrusted to him, even as that for the Jews had been to Peter (Gal. 2:7). This clearly implied freedom from the law of circumcision. This had been granted him at the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:19f.; cf. Gal. 2:6ff.), and it had included his fellow-workers like Titus (Gal. 2:3).
Some scholars have doubted whether the account of Timothy’s circumcision by Paul, as a concession to the Jews (Acts 16:3; contrast Gal. 6:12 ff.), really represents the historical facts. In its favor is the fact that according to Jewish law Timothy was a Jew and so should have been circumcised, and so Paul was only making good an oversight. It is also consistent with Paul’s claim to “have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). This included becoming as a Jew, in order to win Jews, to those under the law “becoming as one under the law -though not being myself under the law – that I might win those under the law” (v. 20). It also may explain Paul’s conduct in Acts 21:17-26.)
If Paul “had no small dissension and debate” with the Jewish Christians about circumcision (Acts 15:2), we may be sure that he was not concerned merely with a cultic act. The issue was linked with the whole question of Law and freedom. (For both Jew and Jewish Christian it was axiomatic that acceptance of circumcision involved the obligation to keep the Law.) That is why he was so intransigent, and why he took Peter’s vacillation so seriously (Gal. 2:11-14; cf. Paul’s criticism of those who advocated circumcision out of fear of man in Gal. 6:12f.). The Jewish belief was that circumcision gave the one who had received it an indelible characteristic that could not be lost. It made him a member of the covenant people once and for all. Using Jewish arguments, Paul took up an extreme position on the relationship of circumcision and the Law, stressing that only for those who did the will of God without reserve was circumcision a true sign of the covenant. Breaking the Law meant that circumcision becomes uncircumcision (Rom. 2:25; cf. also his sarcastic use of “mutilation” in Phil. 3:2 in his attack on false teachers). To keep the Law completely by his own unaided power is impossible for a man. Life must be lived by grace revealed in Christ. “Christ is the end of the law” (Rom. 10:4; cf. also Gal. 3).
For the church, therefore, circumcision can never have the importance it has in Judaism. For Paul, “We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3; cf. 3:5; Gal. 6:13f.). In Rom. 3 Paul speaks of a relative value attached to circumcision because of the promises connected with it. But it is only to stress that the fulfilment of the promises is solely dependent on faith, irrespective of circumcision. For God “will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith” (Rom. 3:30). Rom. 4:7-12 shows clearly that from the standpoint of eternity it is immaterial whether or not a man is circumcised. There Paul calls Abraham as his chief witness for his concept of the equal value of Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian faith. He is equally “father” of both groups. “He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Rom. 4: If in Rom. 15:8 Paul can warn the Gentiles against pride by pointing out that, historically speaking, Christ “became a servant to the circumcised” for the sake of God’s trustworthiness and faithfulness (Rom. 15:8), it has to be understood in the context of Rom. 2:17-24 (cf. 15:5 ff.).
Fundamentally neither circumcision nor uncircumcision have any decisive value in God’s sight. The decisive question is how man reacts to the total claim of God. He may reject it, as to Paul’s grief many circumcised did, or he may put his faith in him and allow this faith to become effective through love (cf. 1Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:6; 6:15; Col. 3:11). Theologically the question of circumcision turns on whether one is circumcised in heart through the Spirit (Rom. 2:29; cf. Acts 7:51), and is not merely the true Jew, but also the new man through the Gospel. How this bursts the bounds of the Law of Moses is shown by Paul’s pointed claim, “We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). Jesus Christ has made circumcision and uncircumcision one (Eph. 2:14ff.), a new creation (Gal. 6:15).
This new man, however, is put on in the act of ->- Baptism which is depicted in Col. 2:11f. as spiritual circumcision. When the old man is thus put off and the new man put on, old contrasts are suspended by a new reality. In the future there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, but “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:9ff.; cf. H. Schlier, KEK 7, 208).
