The Sex of the Recipient
This is now the third and final installment of my examination of the covenant sign of circumcision and what Gospel light might be found in it. In the first post, I wrote about how the location of the sign on the body spoke of both the ending of Adam’s cursed line and the continuation of humanity. In the second post, we looked at the timing of when the sign was administered and how it heralded a new creation in the resurrection of Jesus, and the type of faith the sign represented. We now turn to the final consideration, the sex of the recipient, i.e. only Males.
I mentioned in the first post that we must remember the sign of circumcision was not a bloody and barbaric rite taken from the pagan tribes that surrounded Abraham but was directly given to him by God. Now I must remind you again that the sign’s origin remains the same as we consider that it was only given to Hebrew boys. Circumcision was not some misogynistic snubbing of women; it was a good and gracious gift from the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Far from being against women, I intend to show that the glory of the Gospel and the eternal comfort it would bring was particularly preached in the fact that the sign was intrinsically masculine. Allow me to explain.
Because circumcision is so often connected to the Law, which came hundreds of years later through Moses, we tend to forget that it was not originally given in the context of redemption or salvation at all. It was a sign to Abraham of God’s promise to make him the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4). There was no discussion of sin at this stage in history. The law had not yet been introduced and so, as Paul teaches in Romans 5:13, sin was not counted in its absence. This is not the same as saying there was no sin in the world, just that it was not counted yet, since there was no written code against which to measure it. So the sign of circumcision at its inception was about fatherhood. But fatherhood, it turns out, has everything to do with salvation.
The Mysterious Mechanics of Life
At this point, I must take a brief excursion into the mechanics of baby-making. This may seem like a detour, but it is crucial not only to the points I’m trying to make regarding circumcision but to the Gospel itself. Life comes from the actions and activities of males. If babies are to be born the man must take the initiative. By God’s design, the man advances and the woman receives. Their anatomies declare this order. The male organ of procreation must become physically altered through arousal if he is to enter, with arrow-like movement, and deliver his seed. And the male seed itself is not passive. It moves, swims, seeks, finds, and penetrates the exterior of the woman’s egg. Her egg, on the other hand, is passive. It has not moved into position of its own volition but has been dropped and lies lifeless and waiting. While neither the man’s sperm nor the woman’s egg is a human life, all along it is masculine activity that culminates in fertilization and life. I’ve tried not to get too graphic here, but these physical realities of how God designed things are saying something! In short, children are fathered not mothered. Both are required, for sure, but life comes from men and through women.
Why is all of this important to the topic of circumcision or the Gospel? Because, as I mentioned in the first post, the sign being placed where it was, spoke also of procreation, continuation of human life, of being fruitful and multiplying. God was showing that the only way to redeem the race was to enter into it completely and the only way one enters the human race is by being born into it. If the Eternal, immaterial God would redeem humanity, he must take on flesh to do so, for as Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “all that is not assumed cannot be redeemed.” But how could God become fully human without contracting the entity Paul calls “sin” in Romans (7:11, 13, 17, and 20)? By not having a human father.
God breathed life into Adam’s nostrils. That same life, now corrupted by Adam’s sin, is still propagating humanity today. His tainted life is passed on to every offspring, through the woman, but not from her. Thus, every offspring – male or female bears his nature, but it comes from the man. This is why Mary’s virginity is so highlighted in the narratives of Christ’s birth. Not only was Jesus the eternally begotten Son of the Father before His incarnation, but by being conceived of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb, the human body He took from her was not animated by Adam’s corrupted life. Jesus may have had Mary’s eyes, but He didn’t have Adam’s sin.
Fathering a New Creation
So, salvation, at its most basic level, has to do with fatherhood. Who is your father? If I were to ask you what is the most fundamental thing that determines whether one is a true Christian, you would have to answer, that one is truly a Christian if and only if one is “born again.” (John 3:3) Birth always has to do with fatherhood; and only a boy can one day be a father. The sign of circumcision didn’t make eunuchs of the Hebrew boys but was placed where it was to point to a future Child who would be born of a virgin, a Son who was to be given, who would be called “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father…” (Isa. 9:6) Adam, the father of all humanity, was a “type of Him who was to come” (Rom. 5:14). As “Adam became a living being, the Last Adam (Jesus Christ) became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45) Only a son can be a father, and only the Eternal and Only Begotten Son can be an Everlasting Father.
Well, much more could be written, but I hope this little series on the Old Testament rite of circumcision, if not convincing you of my take on it, has at least piqued your interest in looking a little deeper at God’s previous dealings with His people, and that I’ve made it clear He doesn’t have a plan A and plan B but has always intended to save the world through Christ. Again, Paul’s words in Galatians that the Gospel was preached to Abraham are warrant enough to look closer at these details. And of course, Jesus’s expounding to His disciples on the road to Emmaus how He had been preached throughout the Old Testament should spur us on to look for Him there. What is now called the “New” covenant is simply the fulfillment of the original covenant made with Abraham. God always keeps His promises. It is “new” because the Eternal Son of God, the true seed of Abraham, the true male that all these signs were pointing to has finally come, and through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension has become the first fruits of the undoing of all of Adam’s ruin, the Beginning of a new creation. There can be no greater comfort than by the Father’s grace to be united to His Only Begotten Son through the Holy Spirit, to be “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27) and “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17) These are the promises circumcision proclaimed, the strains of Gospel, hidden in its mandates. We may see them more clearly now that Christ has come, but the message has always been the same, “venture on Him, venture wholly; let no other trust intrude.”
