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Colossians, part 10, Circumcision and Death

After Paul asserts that we are complete in Christ apart from philosophy and empty traditions, and free from the bondage of Epicurean “elementary principles” (materialism), Colossians 2:11 says,

¹¹ and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

Circumcision

Circumcision is a sign of subjection to the Old Covenant. It is what defines a Jew according to Old Covenant definitions. It was the ceremony and the mark of citizenship in the Old Covenant Kingdom, regardless of one’s particular tribal affiliation. Cutting away the flesh signified righteousness, yet it is self-evident that it merely gave the appearance of righteousness. We know this because the Scriptures speak of many unrighteous kings and citizens of Israel and Judah, all of whom were (no doubt) physically circumcised.

In fact, physical circumcision does nothing to alter the heart. Hence, Moses himself spoke of New Covenant circumcision in Deuteronomy 30:6,

⁶ Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

In order to love God with all your heart, the heart must be circumcised (Deuteronomy 6:4, 5). In Matthew 22:37, 38, Jesus affirmed that “this is the great and foremost commandment.” Again, Moses said in Deuteronomy 10:16,

¹⁶ So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.

In other words, heart circumcision results in truly bowing to divine authority, submitting to the commands of God. Jeremiah, who was given the revelation of the New Covenant in chapter 31, added that one’s ears must also be circumcised. So we read in Jeremiah 6:10,

¹⁰ To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed and they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.

When “ears are closed,” ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear and obey the word of the Lord. Such people find the law of God distasteful or even abhorrent. “They have no delight in it.” This draws our attention to the law of voluntary slaves, whose ears are opened and they desire to be permanent slaves of God (Exodus 21:5, 6; Psalm 40: 6-8).

Again, he says in Jeremiah 9:25, 26,

²⁵ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised, ²⁶ … for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”

The Israelites were “circumcised and yet uncircumcised.” They were physically circumcised, but their hearts had not been circumcised. Hence, their physical circumcision was of no benefit to them, for they came under divine judgment.

Paul recognized this in Romans 2:25-27,

²⁵ For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. ²⁶ So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? ²⁷ And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?

Because “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4) and “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), Paul shows that “there is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). Something more is required than an outward, physical display of righteousness. Yet heart circumcision is something that God must do. Men cannot perform such things. So Paul speaks of “circumcision made without hands” (Colossians 2:11). It is a sovereign act of God, which changes both heart and ears.

Uncircumcised hearts leave people in a state of rebellion. Uncircumcised ears leave people with the inability to hear and obey (shema). Now Paul links these conditions to baptism, which, if it is unaccompanied by a change of heart, is just as ineffective as physical circumcision.

Baptism

Paul says in Colossians 2:12, 13,

¹² having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. ¹³ When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

Paul assumes the best here, for he was addressing sincere believers in Colossae. Having heard and responded to the word of truth, they were baptized as a testimony of an inner “faith in the working of God.” In other words, like Abraham, they had faith in the promise of God, believing “that what God had promised, He was able to perform” (Romans 4:21). Old Covenant faith has faith in the promises of men to God (as in Exodus 19:8), while New Covenant faith has faith in God’s promise to men.

Through New Covenant faith, then, hears and ears are circumcised, resulting in righteousness (Romans 4:22). As a witness of this heart transformation, such people are baptized in water, according to the law of baptism in Leviticus 14:1-7. Note that in this law, the priest was to inspect the ex-leper, and he was to baptize him only if he saw that he was truly healed. So also today, the one baptizing ought to question the applicant and then baptize him if he bears witness to the healing that God has performed in his heart.

So when Jesus healed the leper, Luke 5:14 tells us,

¹⁴ And He ordered him to tell no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

A testimony is a witness. Presumably, the leper in this case was found to be disease free, and so the priest baptized him as a double witness confirming an act of God that had already taken place. So also, baptism itself does not save anyone; baptism is a testimony of a heart transformation that has already taken place by faith prior to the baptism.

The same pattern is seen in Israel’s exodus. They were justified at Passover by the blood of the lamb, but only later were they baptized at the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:2).

Baptism signifies death and resurrection. When compared to Israel’s exodus on that first day of Passover, we see that Passover’s focus was on the death of the lambs representing Christ, the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29). By faith we identify with Christ, being one with Him, and so we too “died” in a legal sense. The old man of flesh was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6), so that the new creation man could be raised to “newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

Hence, the man who was born after the flesh (a son of Adam) has died, ending the curse of death that he inherited from his earthly father. His identity is then transferred to a new man that has been begotten by the seed of the word through the Spirit. The curse on Adam and his descendants was death (Genesis 2:17). When the old man of flesh dies, the law of sin and death is satisfied.

Colossians 2:14 concludes,

¹⁴ having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

In those days, when men were crucified, a written list of their crimes (sins) was nailed to the cross so that all men could see why he was being executed. Crimes were defined as violations of the law, so normally, the laws which the criminal had broken were written on the same document that was nailed to his cross.

In Paul’s discussion, we see that when believers are crucified with Christ, the decree of death (death certificate) imposed upon Adam was nailed to the cross, showing that Jesus was paying the debt incurred by Adam’s sin and thus also for the sin-debt of the whole world (1 John 2:2). So Paul was not telling us that the law itself was being abolished, but that the law was being upheld. It was by fulfilling this decree that our old man of flesh died. Yet God arranged the birth of a new creation man so that each of us could become a new and perfect man that was begotten by incorruptible and immortal seed (1 Peter 1:23-25).

Paul, then, compares heart circumcision to the new resurrection life of the new creation man. Our new identity was set free from the curse upon Adam. The mortgage (“death certificate”) was paid. Hearts and ears were circumcised without human hands to fulfill God’s promise. This is the divine path to immortality and incorruption.