· When God made this powerful covenant with Abraham, He demanded a physical sign of the covenant, a mark that set the person apart as a carrier of the covenant.
· God could have asked for many different signs - he could have asked for a pierced ear, but it is not a covenant of idle words and no action; He could have asked for a nose ring, but it is not a covenant of sensory perceptions; He could have asked for a tattoo, but this is not a covenant of skin-deep superficiality - He asked for circumcision and did so for a reason.
· The covenant of salvation we have with our God is a covenant of reproduction, and so it stood to reason that a genital alteration was required.
· It symbolised a cutting away of the old life and a commitment to renewal in Christ.
· In Joshua 5 when a whole new generation of Israelites had to be brought into the covenant, the circumcision had to be performed again, and when it was done God said to them ’I have rolled away the reproach of your past’, and they named the place Gilgal.
· When Jesus came to earth, it was to fulfill the laws and prophecies of old and to usher in a new dispensation, a new deal where the shedding of blood would no longer be necessary for entry into the covenant of eternal life.
· The Bible tells us that no more blood ever has to be shed so that salvation can result - Jesus ’ blood was all the bloodshed that will ever be needed.
· So if we now have a covenant that no longer requires a ritual circumcision, what does the New Testament say about rolling away the reproach and sin from our past?
Romans 2: 25-29
· This says to us that outer signs are of little consequence if the heart has not been changed - no longer does blood have to be shed, but now it becomes an issue of the heart.
Colossians 2: 9-12
· So what do we get from this today?
· Firstly, that when we covenant with Christ, He performs in us a circumcision of our hearts and every sin we ever committed is rolled away and separated from us.
· Secondly, we see that if outer markings are no longer of relevance, we need to learn to stop trying to enforce a policy that is nom longer in operation.
· When Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, he was tackling this self-same problem, because they were saying that faith in Christ is not enough for salvation - a male also needs to be circumcised.
· This whole implication is flawed, because it implies no salvation is available to women, and it had already been said that in Christ there is no longer slave nor free, male nor female - in other words each needs to be in a relationship with Jesus for themselves and could not be in on the covenant because of the husbands circumcision as in days of old.
Galatians 3:23 - 4: 7
· In the Greek tradition a child was watched over by a guardian, but this guardian was always inferior to the parent.
· The Law of the Old testament was a guardian for a period, but was an inferior guardian to Jesus Christ
· When the child was old enough for the guardian to be dismissed, it was a day of rejoicing as it symbolised maturity for the child.
· When we as Christians start to put restraints and rules into our faith, we are re-employing the inferior guardian and dismissing Jesus.
· Our spiritual maturity comes when we live with grace in our hearts - we live by grace-righteousness, not works-righteousness.
· The Judaizers in Galatia criticised the Christians in Galatia as they did not look like they ought - in other words they didn’t conform to a pattern
· When we start to say that you need to look a certain way, dress a certain way, speak a certain way, do church a certain way, we are displaying our immaturity because we are still wanting the restraints of a guardian to help us to live, when Jesus came to give us life and set us free.
· As true believers we live by the leading of the spirit, which we cannot see - an immature person needs the rules and laws that they can see - like a child on a bike with stabilise wheels.
· When we are in Christ we are new creatures and we walk in the ways of God because of a relationship, not because of a rulebook.
· If you need traditions and liturgies to keep your faith afloat, your faith is in serious trouble.
· How do we show legalism in our walk? By waving our spiritual CV’s under people’s noses as if your accomplishments are a badge giving access to higher spirituality.
· We are legalistic if we say that God can only move in certain ways.
· We are legalistic if we believe that only certain forms of music can glorify Him - I mean even art has suffered under legalism because we were told that it was evil.
· By saying that all movies are evil you’re making a rule which God never made.
· When you hear that a Christian has been to a movie, gone to a dance or spent time at a gathering of non-Christians, does your perception of them change?
· When we hold on to laws of how a Christian life should be led we are declaring the word a lie, we’re holding on to the guardian of the immature, and we’re bowing to perceptions and undermining the power of the cross
· The Judaizers in Galatia were saying that the Christian life can be marked by a surgical procedure and a rule book
· Do you do the same?
· Do you mark someone by how he or she worships?
· Do you mark someone because they have different tastes and styles to you?
· Do you mark someone because they have nose-ring or an earring?
· Now there is also a balance to this.
· Being free of the law is not a license to sin - nowhere have I even implied that.
· We’re talking here about the fact that we are free to live as Christ told us.
· In fact when we sin we are getting bound up by the law just as much as the legalist, because the law is no threat to those who are not breaking it.
· Legalistic Christians exhaust themselves trying to live up to rules they impose on themselves, and are so busy trying not to offend God, that they’re missing a good holy life of Spirit-led freedom
· When we are living for Jesus Christ, allowing Him to determine our footsteps, living in the awe and reverent fear of God, we find a freedom to become everything God wants us to become.
· When we set up laws to govern our lives, we focus on the law and not the grace that is freely ours, and quite frankly we miss the plot.
· Besides , we become like the disciples keeping the people from Jesus, instead of a beacon drawing them nearer
· Legalists live their Christianity like a child lost in a supermarket - always searching, trusting instincts, getting into a state of panic if things don’t work out
· Mature Christians get in the trolley and enjoy the ride.
· Self imposed rules are really a sign of wanting to be the master of your own destiny - you want to be able to say that you made it by keeping a strict lifestyle regimen, when Jesus simply said ’come to me you who are weary and heavy ;laden and I will give you rest - my yoke is easy and my burden light’
· 1 Corinthian 7: 19 - ’circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing - keeping God’s commands is what counts’
· Galatians 6: 15 - ’circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing - what counts is that you are a new creation.
· Get rid of the guardian, live by the circumcision of the heart, and you’ll see that this new circumcision is also a covenant of reproduction as God takes us into multiplication in our lives.
