The fulfillment of Circumcision

The gift of Christ

We are going through the book of Genesis in the morning service. This week we are looking at Genesis 17 God’s covenant and the sign of circumcision. What does circumcision mean? Why does God asked Abraham and his family to cut off the flesh of the foreskin?

Peter Leithart has a helpful note in his survey of the Old Testament;

Circumcision marks out the house of Abraham as the house in covenant with Yahweh (17:12–13). Circumcision shows that the flesh is powerless and points to the need for God to be the Giver of the seed. Only God can open Sarah’s womb and fulfill His promise to multiply Abraham’s seed. Circumcision shows that Yahweh alone can build the house of Abraham.¹

Many of us are used to understanding circumcision as a sign of God’s people. What Leithart points out above is the meaning in the immediate context. Abraham has been unable to have a child with his wife Sarah. Making a cut does not make Abraham any more able to have a child, it only confesses his inability more. He is emasculated. But this sign is tied to God’s promise to have a child through Sarah.² What Abraham is unable to do God will do. God’s ability will bring the child of promise.

How does Christ fulfil circumcision? In the book of Isaiah we read ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.’³ In circumcision God has given a sign which points to the child to be born by God’s ability. In the birth of Christ God gives the child of His ability. The virgin conceives through the power of the Holy Spirit.⁴ God gives the true son of promise. Jesus fulfills circumcision through the virgin birth.

As Christians today we no longer wear the sign of circumcision. The promised child has come, we are not looking for another child to be born. Christ has fulfilled circumcision and thus brought it to an end. Now we are baptised. We pass the through the waters. The Old Testament events which are called baptisms (The Flood, the Red-Sea crossing⁵) are movements from the old to the new, the old creation to the new creation.⁶ Our sign directs us to the world to come, the new creation; that is what we are looking towards as Christians.

1. Leithart, Peter. A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament (p. 54). Canon Press.

2. Genesis 17:16

3. Isaiah 7:14

4. Luke 1:35

5. 1 Cor 10:1-12, 1 Peter 3:20-21.

6. The flood itself is an act of decreation and recreation. The flood waters return the world to its state in Genesis 1, God’s Spirit hovering over the waters. As the waters recede the renewed creation emerges.