I hadn’t noticed it before. But after I read this post on what the Bible REALLY Says about Circumcision, I pulled out the leather bound Holy Book, and read it for myself. The Bible could not be more clear. Even more, given the clarity of what the Bible says, I am so surprised I had never been taught it before.
if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you are seeking to be justified by law; and you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:2-4)
Paul devotes the entire Letter to the Galatians to establishing the Case Against Circumcision. He is thorough and clear in his writing, so that we may also be. I’m only discussing Galatians in this post and the next one, but the linked article at the top of this post goes much further in-depth concerning all of the Bible.
The Letter to the Galatians, Paul is discussing how the Church, under the New Covenant of the Cross, no longer needs to practice the OLD Law, the one ritual causing most contention being circumcision. Paul warns against those who would try to persuade the Church otherwise, and in the modern age, I believe Christians and many Americans have been led astray by our culture. Paul warns of this as well. The Enemy is the Deceiver, and we have been greatly deceived.
The first two chapters ‘set the stage’ so to say about the issue in its cultural context. Halfway through chapter 1, Paul is amazed that the Galatians were being so easily deceived, by believing a false gospel, being circumcision. The Gospel of Jesus says we’re free from the old Law, which included genital cutting, and he says in Gal 1:9 if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! Chapter 2 is devoted to defending Paul’s ministry, to establish without a doubt, that the message of the letter to the Galatians is the gospel of Christ. There is to be no confusion, circumcision is part of the Old Law and practicing circumcision under the New Covenant is false gospel. But by the beginning of Chapter 3, he gets right to it.
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?….Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh [circumcision]? Did you suffer so many things in vain-if indeed it was in vain?
The next two chapters, 3 & 4 are further explanations of how the New Covenant under Jesus and the Cross is of the Spirit, not of the flesh. This is to refute the argument of pro-circumcision, so to say. He is making his case against circumcision as it related to the Galatians. Paul uses the wives of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah, as an allegory. Hagar and the child she produced as being representations of the old way (of the flesh, i.e. circumcision), and the child of Sarah being the new promise. One of the spirit, where we are not bound by the yoke of circumcision.
After all, we aren’t supposed to WANT to cut our sons. The whole ritual of circumcision was as an atonement for our sins, the shedding of innocent blood, to remind us of our sinful ways and to keep the covenant with God. It was designed to be painful for the parents (not the child, like it is today), and the New Covenant abolishes this ritual along with animal sacrifice. Paul even explains the purpose of the Law.
Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions…until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made…Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. (3:19, 21)
But our salvation was not based on law, but on faith, so the rule of the law is made irrelevant because of faith.
But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law…the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
Before getting to the next verse, many Christians will stop and say, ‘my choice to circumcise was to *lead* my son to Christ,’ but that is a false gospel. Now that we have Christ, we don’t need the Law. We have already been LED to Christ. Paul is saying all the above to get to this point:
But now that faith has come, we no longer need a tutor. (3:25)
If you have believed by faith, circumcision no longer has ANY place in our worship of Jesus.
Paul is clear in defining son-ship with Jesus did not include circumcision, using the term adoption (4:5). Faith makes us sons of God, not a physical sign of the flesh. It wasn’t part of the deal. In contemporary terms, our sons do not have to look like their circumcised fathers, and cutting his genitals isn’t a definition of sonship. Not in Jesus. Not with our biological fathers.
Then we get to Chapter 5:1-6 and Paul couldn’t be more clear on the consequences of choosing circumcision:
It was for freedom Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. Behold, I Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you are seeking to be justified by law; and you have fallen from grace.
Whoa. That is most certainly NOT neutral. This is not, ‘Do what is best for your family.‘ This is a definitive statement that if you circumcise, you are no longer saved by grace but are bound by the Law. Severed from Christ.
Drop down to verse eleven:
But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.
Mutilate themselves? How many times have I been criticized for calling circumcision mutilation? Paul says it right here, and again in Philippians (3:2). Then he writes about freedom from the Old Law. We are free from cutting babies! To continue to cut babies would be to render the sacrifice of Jesus worthless.
At last we get to the end of the book, where Paul makes his final attempt to make it very very clear that we are not to circumcise under the New Covenant of Christ Jesus.
Galatians 6:11-13 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh to compel you to be circumcised simply so they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so they can boast in your flesh.
The Bible could not be more clear that we must, as Christians under the New Covenant, abandon all hostile and harmful practices under the old Law. We have been freed from the yoke of slavery, of atonement through the spilling of innocent blood.
Circumcision spills innocent blood, and that is a sin. The entire book of Galatians is devoted to hammering home this point. We are saved by grace, by the blood of the cross, and we live under a New Covenant, which most certainly DOES NOT INCLUDE animal sacrifice and cutting babies.
Christians believe that God is all knowing, so he knew we would return to this barbaric practice, and we would be deceived into cutting our sons. The Enemy is the ultimate deceiver, and he has successfully deceived us into disobeying the Word of God. This is the reason it has such a resounding place in the Bible, so there is no confusion. We are not to circumcise, and if we do, then we are abandoning the cross and deeming the sacrifice of Jesus worthless.
Galatians is more relevant now than ever before since the First Century.
Circumcision is a violation of human rights. The only possible justification would be medical necessity after EVERY effort has been made to avoid a circumcision, and failed.
I couldn’t agree more
that the Bible is not shrouded in mystery that God wants to openly communicate with His creation. I never said that God did not want His creation to use his mind we are instructed to study!
Finally .. Genital cutting, IS genital cutting be it females or males. I just wonder when people will be able to grasp this very simple concept and leave baby boys alone.
Maria-
First, I commend you for your honest and thorough examination of Galatians. Interpreting Paul is never an easy task, and I think you’ve done an admirable thing by approaching the circumcision debate from a biblical/theological perspective.
I’ll grant that in general, your argument holds true, Paul is certainly opposed to anyone who suggests that circumcision is still somehow required under the new covenant or that people in the new covenant community should even consider circumcision. He thinks this is total hogwash, which is consistent with your argument.
However, I think Paul’s reasons for coming down so hard against circumcision are different than your reasons, heres why: For Paul or anyone involved in first century Judaism, the term “circumcision” wasn’t just a term denoting the cutting of the foreskin. It in fact had taken on an entirely greater connotation that of course included the act of circumcision, but referred more to the entire nation of people who lived under the Mosaic covenant (i.e. the Torah, Jewish Law). Paul uses the term “Circumcision” to include men, women, boys, girls, infants, who were included in the Old Covenant community, which was, of course, signified by male circumcision. In fact, the term he uses throughout is actually a term that literally means something like “The circumcision group.” Thus, Paul’s use of the term in Galatians is more about the contrast of Law and Christ. Whereas the circumcision group used to be defined by their adherence to the Torah, they now should be defined solely by their faith in Christ, which requires no act of circumcision.
What pisses Paul off so much isn’t just that people may or may not desire to be circumcised, it was that their was a group of people (sometimes called the Judaizers because they were trying to make people more like Jews) who were suggesting that gentile members of their community should HAVE to undergo circumcision in order to part of the group. Paul will have none of this.
So again, Paul’s reasons are less about the medical effects of circumcision or the rate of infant death or the trauma it may cause or the health benefits one way or another. Quite frankly I don’t think he was aware of or even cared about those arguments. His point was that in the New Covenant Community, it is completely preposterous for any group to require another group to adhere to one of their standards. Christ has fulfilled the Law, and thus requirements like circumcision are expired.
Paul even says this in 1 Corinthians 7:
17 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. 20 Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
Again, Paul is against circumcision, but for reasons entirely unrelated to our present context. He was against the notion that the relics of the Old Covenant still had meaning for the New Covenant community. Now, the reasons why people circumcise in today’s context have nothing to do with Law and Gospel and everything to do with cultural norms and the over-medicalization of everything. I think you’ve done a good job of explaining these perspectives and these are the ones that have much more traction.
Lastly, I think the deeper and more relevant theological arguments against circumcision are that we so easily accept cultural norms and practices without ever critically examining them or asking ourselves why we do them. We are slaves to culture in a way that allows us to internalize and normalize things that may in fact be quite damaging. Circumcision may fall under this category. That is where the deeper theological discussion exists.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis.
I couldn’t agree more that culture is what drives the circumcision machine, and exposing that cultural bias for what it is fuels the Intactivist movement.
My reasons for condemning circumcision from a theological point are different from Paul’s because our cultural understanding of circumcision is obviously different than antiquity’s. The Jews were the ‘Circumcised People’ absolutely. We have medicalized a religious ritual, and it’s not only sexist and hypocritical, it’s far more damaging than ancient circumcision. There is no way ancient Jews could have removed the foreskin from a newborn in the desert without killing their offspring or accidentally amputating the whole penis (which does happen in contemporary circumcision).
That’s where the contemporary theological perspective lies. Does God approve of us removing 30% of the male penis? Hardly (Deut 23:1) That’s the argument I attempt to lay out in the second part. Cutting the genitals of our sons is not the will of a loving Father who created that foreskin for a reason. It’s not a birth defect and cutting it off is not honouring to God. And when we look at genital cutting of children without our cultural lens, but with a Biblical lens, the Bible says no.
I guess that’s where my struggle lies. I cannot imagine a God, a loving Father, who approves of destroying his perfect creation, and a very important part of male sexuality. (I’d argue, the crowning jewel, it’s skin not found anywhere else on the body, male or female.) And I just don’t understand why Christians aren’t being taught that circumcision is not approved. Even more, why Christians are some of the worst offenders, and use the Bible to defend their choices. Shouldn’t we be teaching the book of Galatians given that circumcision rates are falling, and it’s a gross violation of Human Rights?
Anyway, thanks for the input, I appreciate it,