40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 23

Episode Date: August 11, 2015

God introduces circumcision. Why does He do that and what does it say about Him, us and Jesus? More than you might think. Listen and find out.

you are listening to a podcast produced and distributed by christholdfast.com please visit christholdfast.com for additional resources this is 40 minutes in the old testament Welcome to episode 23 of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. I am Daniel Emery Price, and I am joined solo by the Chad Bird. Chad, how are you doing? Hey, I'm doing great. Hope everybody else out there is doing well, too, and ready for some good stuff from Genesis. Where are we at in Genesis?

we are on uh we actually skipped ahead 13 years believe it or not uh from last time one chapter 13 years so we're in genesis 17 this morning fantastic well i i feel like i might have aged 13 years since the last time we did this uh i have it's been i've gotten all all work and no sleep for me uh i kind of i kind of feel the same same too i was uh i took my daughter to visit possible colleges this weekend uh so i'm feeling very old uh recently yes there's no nothing like aging children to make me feel like i've uh jumped ahead 13 years myself exactly well uh i guess since since we're talking about why don't we just go there let's do it let's do it uh the reason we jumped ahead 13 years to kind of fill you in on what we've been talking about

is last time we were in Genesis 16 and talked about the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and the pregnancy of Hagar, of her son Ishmael. So we talked about the struggle. I guess you You could call it the struggle or the doubt or the the the impatience with God's ways of working that led up to the pregnancy of Hagar. You'll recall from the story from the listing that that that throughout these chapters, we've had this tension building between the promise of God and the fulfillment of that promise. When we started with Abraham back in Genesis 12, he was 75 years old, and God promised him that he was going to make him into a great nation, and all these descendants would come from him. And yet this promise is still waiting to be fulfilled.

So Abraham and Sarah got tired of waiting, and so they decided to go with their own plan, And they used their maidservant, Hagar, as a surrogate, but that wasn't God's plan. So he told them, no, that's not what's going to happen. Instead, it's going to be my way in accordance with my promise. And so even though the son of Hagar, Ishmael, was going to be blessed and Hagar herself would be blessed. Still, the child that was born to them, born to Abraham and to Hagar, was not the promised child, was not the son that God had promised to Abraham and Sarah. So that was last chapter. This chapter, we're going to jump ahead 13 years. Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael

was born. And the beginning of chapter 17 says that Abraham now is 99 years old. So almost, almost a quarter century has passed from the time that God called Abram out of his country, out of his father's house, into this land of promise, and gave him the promise not only of the land, but of a son and many sons to follow in the coming generations. And yet here we are Abraham is almost a century old. He's 99 now, and yet he has Ishmael, but he does not have a son through Sarah. But all that is about to change. We're going to have in this chapter and then in the following chapter, in chapter 18, the specific promise not only of a son to be born to Abraham and Sarah together, but also we're going finally, we're finally going to be told what his

name will be. But really the focus of chapter 17 is something which is related to the birth of this child, Isaac, but it goes far beyond the specific promise related to that birth, because chapter 17 is focused primarily upon the covenant sign of circumcision. So we're going to be talking about that along with a few other things that are related to it. So we got our plate full, and we got about 35 minutes. So I guess we better jump in and talk about some of the details here. let us read you the opening opening a couple of verses here and talk about a few things there so we're in genesis 17 verse 1 now when abram was 99 years old the lord appeared to abram

and said to him i am god almighty walk before me and be blameless and i will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. And then we have the third verse, Abraham's response. It said, and Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. And let me throw in one more verse. This is verse five. No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. Now, I think one of the first things to point out is something that I have pointed out a couple times before, but I think it's worthy of stressing just because of the confusion that sometimes is out there about these things.

We have at the beginning of the story what's called a theophany. A theophany just is the term for an appearance of God, a manifestation of God. Literally here, the Hebrew has that the Lord made himself seen to Abram. So he appeared to Abram. So this is not merely God talking to a person. this isn't some sort of still small voice that Abram hears nor is it a booming voice from heaven that Abram hears God actually appears to him so it's some sort of physical manifestation of God to Abram and in connection with that theophany or that physical appearance you have God God speaking

And as I've stressed before, and I'll stress again, when we see God revealing himself, either in word or in appearance, that manifestation of God, that way that God reveals himself to us, communicates himself to us, gives himself to us in word or in manifestation, is the work of the Son of God. this is uh this is the a pre-incarnate appearance of the second person the trinity so this is this is christ before his incarnation appearing to the patriarch to talk to the patriarch about his promises and to give even more promises and then to follow that up with the with the covenant of circumcision so really the chapter begins already with with setting the tone by which to read the rest of the chapter, because we have Christ appearing, the Son of God appearing to Abram, to talk about the promise to send a son, and the promise then connected with circumcision. Now, what's fascinating to me, and I always try and do this, is I listen with two ears,

and one ear is always tuned into the Old Testament, and one ear is always tuned into the new testament so anytime that i hear a promise or an act like circumcision spoken of i hear it with my old testament ear in that context but at the same time i can't help but jump ahead to the new testament and i want to talk about that because one of the often overlooked but extremely significant things that happened in the life of christ is that he was circumcised He was circumcised on the eighth day, and that has significant ramifications for what it means that he has become flesh, that he is one of us, that he's come to fulfill the law for us. So we'll get to all that as we talk about circumcision. But right away, the Christ who is going to be circumcised in his incarnation appears to Abram to give him the covenant of circumcision.

And Abram's response, I think, is significant, too. He doesn't fall on his face immediately when Christ appears to him, but he falls on his face after Christ begins to speak to him. So it's almost as if these two things together, the appearance of Christ and the speaking of Christ, his word and his presence overwhelm Abram, and he falls on his face. You ever done that, Dan? Yeah. You ever fall on your face when you hear the word of God? Every morning, Chad.

I thought I was the only one. And I'm glad to know that Abraham and you and I all have that same response. Oh, when I hear the word again, I thought you were just asking if I've ever fallen on my face. I was just like, every day, Chad. Every day, yeah. When we talk about falling on our face, we're usually talking about failure. This is an act of worship. I was thinking about that this morning over my cup of coffee.

The thinking about the involvement of the body in response to God's words. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think that's something that we don't always fully take into account. If you look at the response of believers in the Old Testament, the way they responded to God or to his word or the way that their entire bodies were involved in worship, I think it's insightful because you have all sorts of actions going on, bodily actions going on in Old Testament worship. You have lifting up of the hands. You have a concern even with feet. For instance, the Old Testament priests were not allowed to wear shoes when they ministered in the temple, in the tabernacle, because shoes were a symbol of uncleanness because, you know, you walk on all sorts of

stuff with your shoes. So they ministered barefoot in the temple and tabernacle. And of course, there's all sorts of concerns with ritual cleanness in connection with the body. Here you have Abram falling on his face. In fact, the Hebrew word for worship literally means to bow down before so when we think of worship we sometimes think of it in sort of as an abstract sort of thing but for for the hebrews worship was actually a bodily a bodily action as well as something which involved the heart and mind you know it's funny we have a um a new keyboardist at church i know we're we are losing church but uh we do have we have we have a keyboardist sorry um but uh And she had asked if she could play barefoot.

Really? Because at the church that she had been to previously, she had played barefoot. After she did it, they came to her and said, no, we don't do that here. You can't just go up on the stage barefoot. And she asked me if it was okay. And because of this, this is, I mean, probably just because I'm pretty relaxed. I don't care just from a very, because I don't care. But also because of this, I was like, you want to play barefoot?

I think you have biblical grounds for playing, for getting up there barefoot if you want to. Yeah, we have at least two examples in the Old Testament of people, not just choosing to remove their their sandals but actually being commanded to remove their sandals uh moses at the burning bush and then joshua when the uh the angel appears to him i'm gonna start preaching barefoot yeah yeah there you go there you go yeah so uh that you see uh the jews actually employed a doctor uh a physician in connection with the uh the temple worship so he He could minister to the priest if they had any feet problems, I guess.

They said they were barefoot the whole time they were in service. But that was the idea that, you know, shoes are, even now in Eastern cultures, shoes are a symbol of uncleanness. So they were removed before the priest would enter into the holy ground of the tabernacle. so if you if you do end up preaching barefoot i want a picture okay well here's abram he's uh he's on his face uh this is his response to the manifestation of god into the word of god and god is basically at first anyway reiterating what he's what he's promised abram before that he's going to he already has a covenant with abraham we saw that back in in 15 and uh he's already promised Abram that he's going to multiply him exceedingly. And he's already told him he's

going to be the father of a whole lot of people. So at first, everything that God says is something that Abram has heard before, but needs to hear again, as we all do the promises of God, those heard again and again reinforced. But then when we get to verse five, we have something which is entirely new, not only for Abram, but actually this is the first time that this occurs in the old testament we have a name change so god says no longer shall your name be called abram but your name shall be abraham for i will make you the father of a multitude of nations so abram just means uh exalted father uh something like that a father who's lifted up but abraham is is a is a combination really of three different different parts uh of is is the hebrew for

Father. We're more familiar with the Aramaic Abba, Abba, Father. This is a shortened form, just A-B-Ab or Av, depending on how you want to pronounce it. And then Rav, which is exalted or lifted up. But then the Hamon is attached to the end. It's shortened for Abraham. It's not Av-Rav-Hamon, but just Av-Rah-Ham. And the Hamon on the end is the Hebrew word for multitude. So your name shall be Abraham, that hamon at the end, because he's going to be the father of a multitude of nations. Now, this is foreign to us because I think for most of us, you know, names don't mean a whole lot. I mean, maybe I can't remember where my parents got my name, but it had no real theological or philosophical importance to them. It was somebody they knew named Chad, and so they named me Chad.

And I don't know if maybe your parents had a deeper reason for naming you Daniel. At least you have a biblical name. Oh, well, my parents went with all Bible names on six kids. Oh, okay. Well, I named my son Luke Gabriel because I figured if I named him after an evangelist and an archangel, then he had a pretty good chance to turn out to be a good kid. Yeah, it is funny how that works. There are certain names because of the Bible that you – this is part of our own silliness.

But, like, you know, there could be a name in the Bible that you think is really cool that you're like, I'm not naming my kid that. You know, if it's someone bad. It's true. That's true. You never met a Cain, have you? No, I have not. Or Jezebel. Judas running around.

Yeah, there are certain names that I would strongly discourage someone from choosing. For the biblical people, names typically were chosen because the name itself was oftentimes an indication of kind of a deeper understanding of who this child was, who they wanted him to be. Or oftentimes the name itself was almost prophetic. It had a future pointing reference to it. The most famous name change is that of Jacob to Israel, which we'll get to in chapter 32 of Genesis, when Israel means one who basically fights with God. It's quite a name, really, especially for God to give. god changes his name from from jacob which means supplanter to israel one who fights with god so

for for god to give you a name which means one who fights with me one who fights with god is uh is phenomenal i've always loved that he changed his name to that because it's so representative of the entire nation of israel for like the for the rest of scripture like i'm gonna i'm gonna change your name to israel that means one who fights with god by the way that's basically the rest of this entire story is it's like the names basically sums up the whole uh the whole old testament yeah it's like it's exile and return it's exile and return it's like the israel is constantly like in rebellion in repentance in rebellion in repentance yeah i'm gonna name you one who fights with me that's pretty much how it goes it's uh it's very fitting then that the

church is called the new israel because uh do the same thing do the same thing but i mean god is a name-changing god and uh i mean he does it he does it with abraham he does it with jacob he does he does but he does it in the new testament too he does it with peter uh he does it with paul and he does it with you and he does it with me and uh and you know moses says your name is sinner and christ says your name is baptized child of god that's who you are you know in in peter's case and uh even even in abraham's case too you know uh he does it uh before they do anything i mean he he lays his eyeballs on peter and changes his name right there right right out the gate you know in uh at the beginning of john he says the first time he meets him he says your

name will be peter he makes a he makes a play on you know he uses a play on words he names him peter which means rock and then he'll later on like play on that when he talks about the rocks he's going to build the church on and plays on his name but peter was uh very he had some moments in his future where he was a whole lot like a rock uh and you know the other times where he was like a rock in the worst possible ways uh he was hard-headed he slept like a rock when he was supposed to be praying he sunk like a rock when he was supposed to be walking on water he was dumb as a rock uh you know all like i i think we think of this as uh it's all good things but sometimes he was very rock like in the worst ways possible but then in other times he was uh he was rock

like when he's being uh crucified upside down as well or when he's uh when he's preaching the pentecost sermon but but jesus gives him that name and he says this is who you are not because you've earned this name but because i i just get i give i i name you this and it's true of you because i say because i say it is uh he doesn't wait for peter to do a bunch of stuff and be like you know what because you did that i'm gonna go ahead and give you this new thing um he makes him that thing he says this is this is who you are now yeah same thing with paul says you're not and you're not saw anymore you're this because i say so so the name change is a it's it's not a a reward it's it's it's really a gift right exactly so it's a gift from god whereby

he's indicating the kind of the kind of work of grace that he is going to he's going to be uh working within their lives and it's it's like that with abraham too you know this is like you said this is not something that abraham did um in fact nothing had happened up to this point he had he had one one son that uh was begotten through his own through his own mistake uh through his own plan but he didn't he didn't have isaac yet and yet he's given this this name change which indicates he's going to be the father of a not just a son but a whole multitude of nations one thing you don't ever see god doing is like reverting back to the old name either there's no i'm gonna change your name to this and then like down the road he's like you know what abraham

forget that like forget all that you're you're abram again uh you have you've soiled this new You've soiled the name I gave you, so I'm going to renege on that. I'm going to take that back. Paul, I'm taking that back. Peter, I'm taking that back. Israel, I'm taking that back. And he doesn't do that either. Once he changes your name, that's a done deal.

You are what he says you are, period, forever. Your ability to live up to whatever it is that he's called you is not in play. it's it's it's great that in that way god god chooses our identity it's not something that we manufacture it's not something that we come up with we don't figure out okay this is who i want to be or this is who i want to think think others want me to be but god chooses our identity he's the one who says this is who you are this is the name by which you will be called this is the name that is indicative of the grace and the gifts that I am bestowing upon you because I love you.

So it's very much in keeping with him as a father to give this name to his children. So we have Abraham's name being changed here, the first of many such instances. then uh he he goes on to uh talk more about the uh the covenant that he's going to make with him the the only other thing i want to mention here before we get to that covenant and talking about circumcision is uh there is an expansion of of the promise or maybe we could say they're a further clarification of the promise because in verse six it says that not only will he make nations

come from abraham but he's also going to make kings come forth from him that's the first time that god has mentioned that uh kings are going to come forth from abraham so it and i mentioned that because it's a it's very much the way the old testament works uh we are we we are seeing the gradual unfolding of the promise uh and that promise will this promise here about kings what we'll see in the life of King David and his descendants, and then ultimately fulfilled, of course, in Christ, who is our King, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But you see this so often in the Old Testament that it's worth pointing out here, that the promise is given. It's a clear promise or clear enough promise to the people, but then over time it

expands, just like we have the promise of the seed given in Genesis 3, and then a gradual narrowing down of the line of people from whom that seed will come as the as the old testament progresses so there's there's certainly a sense of a of a now and not yet in the old testament the now of the promise but the not yet of its full clarification and of course fulfillment in christ okay let's get to the covenant itself and and talk about it for for a few minutes uh because it's a I think it's the covenant and the covenant right of circumcision are extremely important for us to get a better understanding of, especially as they relate to us as Christians. So I'm looking here at verse 9 in chapter 17, and God is continuing to speak to Abraham. He says, now as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. And it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations. And then he goes on to say, this is not just you and your immediate family, but also any servants who are part of your expanded household. Circumcision is, I think for most Christians, something they just really don't get into. I don't know if it's because they're uncomfortable with it or because it just seems so strange or outdated or whatever the reason might be. It it has a this particular chapter has a has a special significance to me because it's kind of part of my my own journey.

The understanding of what circumcision implies theologically, because it was it was it was that that kind of helped clarify for me the the purpose and the meaning of a baptism. uh i was raised in a i was raised in the church as we've talked about before uh southern baptist church that of course does not does not uh practice the the baptism of infants and i can distinctly remember uh in my in my late teenage years when i was struggling with the the meaning a baptism that uh for me the biggest hang-up was infant baptism this uh this idea that a uh a child who was not able to make any kind of decisions on his own would be would be baptized and i was i was talking about a whole lot of issues related to that that uh things like original sin and freedom of the will and just what grace is

and all sorts of other questions that revolve around what baptism is. And somewhere along the way, the pastor that I was talking to about baptism started talking to me about circumcision and this whole story of Abraham and Isaac and Ishmael and everyone else. And it was in reflecting upon the theological understanding of circumcision that baptism actually began to make a whole lot more sense to me, specifically the baptism of younger children or of infants. to i guess just to say it uh simplistically what finally clarified in my own mind uh was that uh here we have a an eight-day-old child who is it was in need of the gifts of god adoption into the covenant family and of course is unable to make that decision for himself

And yet it is a gift that God desires to give to him already in infancy. So God establishes this, what you might call a sacrament, this holy action, whereby a child is brought into the gifts of the covenant that are connected with Abraham and his family. And for me, anyway, the thought that God worked that way in the Old Testament, that he desired for even eight-day-old children to be beneficiaries of his gifts of grace was a perfect parallel to God's desire for children, infants, today as well, to receive his gifts of forgiveness and life and salvation in the waters of baptism. It's not a question of people deciding for themselves.

It's a question of God willing to love and to give His gifts of grace to us even before we would ask or even know that we necessarily need them. It's God's desire to bring people of all ages into His grace and forgiveness in Christ. Yeah, the circumcision, yeah, that played a big role for me. My daughter, I tell her all the time, every night, I tell her that she's very special and she's very important to me and that she is a baptized child of God. That's what I tell her when she lays down, because that's who she is, because that's who God has made her.

She's his. She belongs to him. Yeah, for the Jews, circumcision, except in rare instances, was always performed on infants there you go you're getting you're getting baptized and like another thing is we can trust god uh god didn't like accidentally put my daughter into my house she wasn't accidentally born into a christian house that's that's where he put her um and so uh let the let the little children come to come on to me that this is this he's put her there And so I can trust that that baptism then is for her because, I mean, she wasn't born in my—she could have been born in my neighbor's house, but she wasn't. She was born into my house.

And I love the parallels between circumcision and baptism regarding its permanence, too. Yeah. Because you're not circumcised multiple times. No. Nor do you become uncircumcised. uh what what god does is he and and also the fact that it's this is literally as as as god says here in genesis 17 it's a covenant in the flesh uh this is this something which is performed upon the body that's not simply external but it has internal uh implications as well so in baptism it's something

that we are, that's done to our body, the water is placed upon our bodies, and yet it's not just some sort of external action. It's both of these, circumcision performed on the body, baptism performed on the body, are God's way of, through this external action, giving us external as well as internal blessings. In other words, it's his way of giving us everything that he wants to give to us. So it's an action, a holy action by which God sanctifies us, makes us holy, makes us his own, makes us his own permanently. In circumcision, it was a literal mark in the flesh. In baptism, it's a washing of the flesh. But in both cases, God is working externally upon the person to give them lifelong, in fact, everlasting benefits. I think it's good to remember, too, as I indicated

a few minutes ago, that Christ himself was circumcised, not because he was in need of the removal of any kind of sin, but because he came to fulfill the law for us. In fact, it's almost as if he overfilled the law uh he he did above and beyond what was what was required and in being circumcised it's it's a further indication of how far he came into our existence he became flesh he became one of us he went through the same things that we went through he went he was he was a jewish male until he was circumcised he went to the temple He celebrated Passover and all the other festivals. So everything that was required of the Jewish males, he did in order that the law might be fulfilled in him and that he might then give us that fulfillment of the law.

And that's why it's coming of Christ and his atoning work circumcision is no longer no longer required. It's been it's been fulfilled. It's part of that Old Testament law, just like the animal sacrifices, the temple, their festival calendar, all of that has been fulfilled in Christ. And so we are no longer obligated to circumcise or to worship on Saturday, the Old Testament Sabbath, or to sacrifice sheep and oxen on our altars, Because all of that has been fulfilled in Christ, who fulfilled the law for us and gives us, by grace, his fulfillment of the law, so that in him we are made complete. Right. Well, in baptism, we are brought into Christ, who, as odd as this may sound, we are brought into Christ, who is the circumcised God forever. yeah who it's right even even now and into all eternity he is the circumcised god in whom we are made perfect uh finally uh luther talks about uh how in the resurrection you have this the the full

and complete circumcision this that is the purification of our of our flesh and the resurrection of the body so that we are glorified to be to be like our lord so in in circumcision if you look at it in the totality of the biblical story we see an indication of the resurrection of all flesh on the last day as we are brought to perfection in the resurrected body of christ that's good i think we are we are out of time i don't think we said everything needs to be i don't know if we're going to still be on this next week or not chad i don't think we covered everything there was to cover here i think there's more to cover yeah we're still going to be in 17 uh next time around okay well chad thanks so much you bet thank you thanks everybody for listening all right

we'll see you guys next week Thank you.