Circumcision and Name of Jesus

Sermon Text: Luke 2:21

Other Readings: Numbers 6:22-27 and Galatians 3:23-29
 

  1. What are the biblical roots for circumcision? Consult Genesis 17 and Leviticus 12:1-3.
     
  2. What might God be saying to his people by commanding them to inflict pain upon a sex organ which only one gender has?
     
  3. What is Jesus proclaiming by undergoing this procedure? Confer Galatians 4:4,5.
     
  4. It would be unwise to say that baptism replaced circumcision. But what similarities might we see between the two? How do they differ?

 

  1. Initially, circumcision was a sign attached to God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many peoples and the ancestor of the Savior-Messiah. Later on, circumcision was also associated with the law which God had given to Israel through Moses. So, circumcision helped signify that the circumcised was a part of God’s people, but also under obligation to obey all the Mosaic law.
     
  2. Martin Luther stressed that God commands this seemingly foolish act in order to humble our pride. It forces us to take God at his word and set aside our human preconceptions about how God should do things. The fact that circumcision is done to the male sex organ speaks to the severity of sin already at the point of conception. One commentator said, “The ceremony itself signified that the whole human nature was so much corrupted by sin that even the source of this earthly procreation and life was displeasing to God and rejected by him.”
     
  3. Jesus is saying that he is the one who will be considered sin for us and he is the one who is willing to live as one under the obligations and the curse of the law.
     
  4. Baptism and circumcision are similar in that they both had a promise attached to a sign. In baptism, we have the promise of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation attached to the earthly sign of water. In this way, some Lutheran commentators even call circumcision a sacrament. But baptism vastly differs from circumcision because in three major ways: 1) Circumcision was part of the ceremonial law in the Old Testament which Christ has fulfilled. 2) Baptism is for all people, Jew or Gentile, male or female. 3) Baptism points us back to the work of Christ and unites us with it.