Colossians 2:11–12“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.”
As I continue in this Bible Study of the Sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), the next lesson really explained the symbolic sign of the spiritual reality well of circumcision. The lesson teaches, although baptism is a sacrament of the new covenant, that does not mean we understand it from only the new covenant revelation. In fact, some of the most important teaching about baptism and its significance is given in the Old Testament. To understand how this can be the case, we must first look at Colossians 2:11–12 (above), wherein Paul uses the language of both circumcision and baptism to refer to spiritual realities that are true for all those who are in Christ Jesus by faith alone.
Because of this connection between circumcision, baptism, and particular spiritual truths, we may rightly infer that new covenant baptism corresponds to old covenant circumcision, both rites signing and sealing the same reality under different administrations of the one covenant of grace. This is the conclusion of John Calvin, who comments: “Christ . . . accomplishes in us spiritual circumcision, not through means of that ancient sign, which was in force under Moses, but by baptism. Baptism, therefore, is a sign of the thing that is presented to us, which while absent was prefigured by circumcision.”
But what was circumcision supposed to sign and seal? Paul answers this question for us in his reference to the “circumcision made without hands.” This is another way of speaking of the circumcision of the heart that the prophets proclaimed to old covenant Israel. Deuteronomy 10:12–22, for instance, calls for Israel to have circumcised hearts.
Deuteronomy 10:12-22 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your [good? Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore, love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.
Physical circumcision was a visible mark that separated the Israelites from the pagan Gentiles (Genesis 17), but in itself all it accomplished was designating those who received the signs as members of the visible covenant people. To be God’s people in the truest and fullest sense, there had to be circumcision of the heart, a separation of one’s love and commitment away from the things of this world unto the things of God. In essence, circumcision pointed to the need for regeneration under the old covenant just as baptism points to the need for regeneration under the new covenant.
Circumcision also wounds the flesh, revealing the consequences of those who broke the covenant. Those who were not circumcised in the flesh would be cut off from the visible covenant people (Gen. 17:14), corresponding to the spiritual reality that those who were not circumcised in the heart would be cut off from eternal salvation. Those who receive God’s covenant signs face consequences if they do not keep their covenant obligations.
Preeminently, repentance and faith are the covenant obligations for those who receive the sacrament. Just as those who were circumcised had to truly repent and believe, so must those who are baptized repent and believe. If we do not, we will be cut off from God’s people and from eternal salvation. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward believing faith decision with repentance leading to a conversion soul with a regenerated, circumcised heart connected to God in Christ. A eternal life or death matter.
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