Ask anyone who is outside of Christ what they need to do in order to be saved, and the response is, more often than not, pretty uniform across the board: do good works, and if you do enough of them, maybe the good works will outweigh the bad deeds on Judgment Day and voila! You would be allowed to enter into paradise. In essence, all religions outside of biblical Christianity share one thing in common: a form of works-based salvation. Some, most notably Roman Catholics, will point to passages such as James 2:24, where it says, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”, in order to prove that justification before God is accomplished by our works. To add even more to this 500-year-old controversy, this is not some rogue statement James makes; in fact, he appears to double down on this notion throughout the chapter and ends his thought with the culminating statement, “[…]faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).

But is James really teaching us that we are justified by our works? What do we do with the myriad of passages that teach so clearly that we are justified by faith and not works (Romans 3:28, Ephesians 2:8-9)? One way to answer this question is to take a closer look at the events that are played out in the life of Abraham, paying particular attention to their chronological order. Paul would employ this very argument in Romans 4 when he wrote, “Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, ‘Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.’ How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them” (v. 9-11, emphasis added). Paul’s point was that it wasn’t Abraham’s act of circumcision that saved him; rather, he was justified through the faith through which God accredited righteousness to him. When we consider this truth alongside James’ argument, we come to understand that these parallel truths indeed work in perfect harmony. Salvation is not earned by our works, but it is received through faith which in turn produces good works.

In today’s blog, we will be studying Genesis 17, a passage that serves as a real-life object lesson for what it means to truly live by faith, a faith that necessarily produces obedience. At least 13 years have passed since the covenant-cutting ceremony in Genesis 15. Now at age 99, God once again appeared to Abraham and not only repeated the promises of a land, a seed, and a blessing of the nations, but He also did two new things: changing Abram’s name to Abraham (v. 5) and commanding Abraham and his descendants to be circumcised (v. 10). Anyone found to not be circumcised would be “cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (v. 14). Abraham would indeed prove to be obedient to this command as he circumcised himself and all the males in his household (v. 23-24), but before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it is important to note that at this point in Abraham’s life, he was likely already convinced that the promises of God would be fulfilled through a son that he already had, namely Ishmael, as verse 18 indicates.

We were first introduced to Ishmael in Genesis 16, as he was the offspring of Abraham and an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. According to the text, it was actually Sarah’s idea for Abraham to go into Hagar since “the Lord has prevented me from bearing children” (Genesis 16:2), though she would come to greatly regret this decision. When the Lord appeared to Abraham and Sarah at post-childbearing ages only to be told that his 13-year-old son was not the promised one and there was instead one yet to be born who would be the child of promise, it is easy to understand why Abraham and his wife responded the way they initially did. While Abraham remained uncertain about how God would fulfill His promise, that did not stop him from immediately obeying the Lord in the act of circumcision, and this is a great lesson for us even as we navigate our uncertainties in our Christian walk. We obey not because we fully understand everything, but because we “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). 

Abraham, our forefather in the faith, was no different, and he demonstrated this time and time again throughout his life. This does pose a very interesting question for our consideration as we study the actions of Abraham in Genesis 17. If circumcision is a requirement of the Abrahamic Covenant (v. 10), and we who are in Christ are children of Abraham by faith, does that mean circumcision remains a requirement for believers today? The apostle Paul answered this very question with a resounding “no” multiple times in the New Testament, most notably in Galatians 5:6 where he wrote, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” So, what do we do then with Genesis 17:9-10, which very clearly teaches that every male descendant of Abraham was to be circumcised?

There are a couple of ways we can resolve this apparent conundrum. First, the covenant of circumcision was the foundation of the Mosaic Law and as such it became part of the Law of Moses (Leviticus 12:3). Moreover, since Christ, a descendant of Abraham (Matthew 1:1), was circumcised on the eight day and kept the whole law, we as Christians are not bound any longer from that requirement. Circumcision, along with all the Mosaic Law, was fulfilled by and in the person of Christ (Galatians 4:4-5). This then leads to my second point, which is that while we are no longer under obligation to be circumcised in the flesh, there is very much still the necessity of being circumcised spiritually! The apostle Paul wrote, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (Romans 2:28-29). What does it mean to be circumcised in the heart? In short, a circumcised heart is a heart that has been changed by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who works in our hearts to cause us to walk according to His statutes and conform us more and more into the image of Christ.

As I bring this to a landing, it is important to note that nowhere in Scripture do we find any notion that circumcision in the Old Covenant corresponds to baptism in the New Covenant. These are two different pictures for two different purposes. Baptism pictures our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection; circumcision pictures the removal of our sinful desires that God began doing in our hearts the moment we were saved. All who are true children of Abraham do the deeds of Abraham, a man who demonstrated his genuine faith by his works all throughout his life. To be truly circumcised in the heart is to have a new attitude of hatred towards sin, which is the mark of all who are set apart by God to be in a covenant relationship with Him. Next time, we will fast forward to the time of Moses and begin discussing the covenant that God made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai.