Romans 2:25-29

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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Today, we are in Romans chapter 2, verses 25 -29.

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We've made it to the end of chapter 2. Last week, we looked at verses 17 -24 where Paul speaks to the

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Jews to point out that they are not saved by merely knowing the law.

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We've also looked at how Paul has explained to the Jews that they aren't simply saved by being

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Jews, but by being blood -related to Abraham, since that also does not save.

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And today, we're going to examine how

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Paul is going to talk about another aspect that the

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Jews put their faith in for salvation, the sign of the

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Abrahamic covenant. He again will explain why this is a foolish notion.

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But as we normally do, let's back up to verse 17. But if you call yourself a

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Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know His will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law, and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

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While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

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You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, dishonor

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God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the

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Gentiles because of you. Verse 25, for circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law.

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But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

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For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

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But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the

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Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.

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It is a common belief at the time, not all Jews necessarily share the belief.

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There's a very common belief at the time that because you are a circumcised male, you're good, you're good to go.

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This is an act that is done on the eighth day after being born, but that this act would automatically grant you passage into heaven, into paradise.

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I have an example of... There were examples of multiple teachings and different things about it in the

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Talmud. This is an excerpt from a newer article from Ismar Skorsh, Rabbi Herman Abramovitz, Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish History and Chancellor, Emirates, posted on October 15, 1994, a

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Torah commentary. Similarly, circumcision is delayed to the eighth day as if to say that it is the very first time when a male child may symbolically be dedicated to the service of God.

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The rite is a pledge of fealty and the mark, a lifelong external sign of apartness.

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Until the eighth day, the child is without its own identity, entirely in the dominion of its mother.

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The partnership with God is not forged until the first faint signs of viability and independence.

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The bestowal of a name at the same time underscores the transition to individuality and responsibility.

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Therefore, a male Jew spends the rest of their lives moving from fate to faith, turning the covenant in the flesh, or birit milah, into a testimonial of spiritual nobility.

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The Torah has thus transformed circumcision into a resonant symbol of Jewish destiny, a divine promise of national fertility coupled with a human commitment to live by God's law.

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Now, most of that sounds perfectly fine. It is in accordance with what they're supposed to do, circumcise on the eighth day, all of that.

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It does not bestow spiritual nobility. It doesn't because when you're talking about spiritual nobility, what you're talking about is the same thing that we talk about being saved gives.

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Every person who is a member of God's covenant people, us, everyone, is adopted by God in Christ.

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We share in that. Can circumcision grant that?

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Can anything other than being saved and being indwelt with the Holy Spirit do that?

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No, but that's exactly what they're saying. There was more in here about creating new traditions that would do the same thing for girls because they don't have a thing that they do, but the article was quite extensive, so I'll cut it off there because that was the gist of it.

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And in verse 25, it says, For circumcision is indeed of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

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Circumcision was a sign of the Abrahamic covenant and was in and of itself a good thing.

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It is absolutely a good thing. They were commanded to do it.

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The issue is that the Jews, rather than looking at what the sign pointed to, they put their confidence in the sign itself.

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This is why Paul is addressing it. The view that still persists today is that those who are uncircumcised are dirty and unclean.

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This is evident from the scripture that we read earlier when

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Peter says, God has told me that I should not call people common and unclean who he has made clean.

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Paul is saying that it doesn't matter if you have the sign of the new covenant if you do not do what the covenant requires.

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The breaking of the law empties the sign itself of its value. It would be just as if you saw a random stop sign in the middle of the road with nowhere to stop.

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It says stop. Why? Eventually, you're not going to stop anymore because you're going to come to the conclusion that there's no point.

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It empties the sign of its value. In Jeremiah 9 verse 25, it says,

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Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will push all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh,

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Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert, who cut the corners of their hair.

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For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

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Like the Gentile that does not live up to the light of nature or general revelation, the moral law that is evident to everyone, the

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Jew that has the law but ignores it is punished all the same. It is not the signs that save us, but the sign of the new covenant is baptism.

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It's what we have now. Much like the Jews of the time, though it may not be taught outright as a doctrine, the practice of many who claim

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Christianity today are shown by their churches and their practices to put their confidence in the sign.

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Let me read you this from Arthur Pink.

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The devil is well pleased if he can get the sinner to look at anything other than Christ. Good works, repentance, resolutions, baptism, anything so long as it is not

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Christ himself. And yet how many do we know that do this today?

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They say some words, they do a thing, and now you're good for life.

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They said some words, they used a knife, and now you're good for life.

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You said some words, you took a dip, and now you're good for life. That is, speaking to baptism, the worst thing that has happened to the church in the past 150 years is a sinner's prayer.

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Plain and simple. There's no grounding for it in scripture, and we baptize those who say it before they ever show fruit, which is absolutely hilarious because we're not

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Presbyterians. We're Baptists. Read an article earlier this week where Baptists were exiled from Massachusetts because they denied paedo -baptism, because they refused to baptize people who hadn't shown fruit of faith.

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So Massachusetts wrote a law to kick them out, and yet baptizing people who show no fruit is more a

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Baptist practice than it is a Presbyterian one or a Lutheran one. The Baptist church is the largest church in the

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United States. How many eight -year -olds do you think we get in that tank every

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Sunday? And they go the rest of their life in sin, doing everything every other pagan does, as Baptists, we make a point of not bestowing this sign until there is fruit because we know we ought to put our faith in Christ alone and nothing else.

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Verse 26. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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A perfect example of this is in Acts 10 that Reid just read from. Now he read the parts that I'm not going to read.

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Starting in verse 1. At Caesarea, there was a man named

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Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the

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Italian cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household.

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Gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly a vision of an angel of God come in and say to him,

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Cornelius. And he stared at him in terror and said, who is it,

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Lord? Or what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

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And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called

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Peter. He is lodging with someone, with one Simon, a tanner.

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His house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him.

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And having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. Now we're going to skip ahead a bit here, but to go back over what

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Reed had read earlier, Peter has a vision of this large piece of cloth that ascends from heaven.

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And God tells him to not call unclean that which he has made clean. And Peter accompanies the men back to Caesarea.

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And for the first time, he preaches to Gentiles. And Cornelius invites everybody, everybody, everybody he could to hear

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Peter. Peter even brings up the fact that they know that he's a

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Jew and he should not be visiting.

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He shouldn't even be visiting the home of Gentiles according to Jewish tradition.

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But Peter understands God's message and shares the gospel. And in verse 44, it says,

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While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.

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And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the

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Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling

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God. Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the

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Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

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Then they asked him to remain for some days. Cornelius is not a

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Jew. He is not circumcised. He is a believing Roman.

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A centurion. He's not like a regular soldier. He's in charge of many men.

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He's a very wealthy individual with lots of power.

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And yet he has faith in God enough from what he knows.

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Because keep in mind, he can't go to synagogue either. He can't.

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He's a Gentile. So he's only operating off of the information that he has gleaned.

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That's not to say that he didn't have the moral law. He didn't have some of the information.

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But he is a believing Gentile who certainly didn't have the gospel yet because Peter had to come and preach it to him.

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Because of this, because he keeps what he can, God sends an angel to him and has

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Peter go deliver the good news to him and his family. And all that were there.

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And it says right there in the text that the men who were circumcised, including

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Peter, the men who had come with Peter, are absolutely astonished at this because previously they were unclean.

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In verse 27, then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

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It is a greater condemnation to those who have a fuller understanding of who God is and what he wants and are not obedient.

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If those who have less understanding than they do and yet they are as obedient as they can be with the full knowledge they have.

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Jesus says in Matthew 12, 40 to 42, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

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For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here.

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The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

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For she came to the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something greater than Solomon is here.

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So the queen listened to what Solomon knew, right?

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And the Ninevites only had heard what Jonah had to say.

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They didn't have the full knowledge but were obedient and repentant nonetheless in what they were told.

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The Jews had a privilege in knowing God and having the fullness of his written code and yet they chose to ignore it over and over and over again.

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And not only did that, they chose to ignore and condemn the very person who was prophesied for believing

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Jews and believing Gentiles. It was prophesied to save them.

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There were many people who followed

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Jesus throughout the gospels you can read. Thousands of people, right?

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Saw him perform signs and miracles and teach and preach and do all the things that Christ did during his earthly ministry.

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How many of them were left? How many are left at the end of the gospels?

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Not very many. Not as many as we started with because they preferred signs rather than having understanding of the scriptures that they had.

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Even the apostles' moments in the gospels don't have no idea what he's talking about.

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They have to ask. And more often than not, he explains it to them.

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But some things they don't understand until after they've happened, like the resurrection.

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In verse 28, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

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The Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter.

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His praise is not from man, but from God. Some may make an argument that what

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Paul is saying to the Jews here is new information that the

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Jews didn't have. They didn't know this. All they knew was circumcision and that they were told to do it.

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The issue with that is the Jews had this knowledge. None of what

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Paul is saying here is new to them.

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It is stated very plainly in the Old Testament. Paul, at this time, doesn't have the

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New Testament, does he? He doesn't have New Testament scriptures. They're being written in the first century.

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He is simply applying the scriptures as they ought to be and showing, in his argument, to the

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Jews the manner in which it ought to be read.

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Deuteronomy 30, verse 6. And the

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Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the

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Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 6 and 7.

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Jeremiah 4, verse 4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of the land. O men of Judah and inhabitants of the land. And be no longer stubborn, for the

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Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome

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God who is not partial and takes no bribe. Jeremiah 4, verse 4, circumcise yourselves to the

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Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of your evil deeds.

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This is just one, two, this is just three examples. There are many, many more explaining what circumcision actually is and what it means.

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It is the work of the Holy Spirit that converts or circumcises the hearts of men.

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It has always been that way from the beginning. Everyone who has been and will be saved is saved by the same thing,

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His grace. His work is what makes someone truly a member of God's covenant people.

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By His grace, through faith in Christ.

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Colossians 2, 11 through 14, in Him also you were circumcised, with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised

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Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

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This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. Paul has made it clear that it is not the case that the

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Jews were saved through their blood relation to Abraham or through the knowledge of the law, that the members of the covenant are not those who are

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Jews outwardly, but those who are inwardly by the work of the

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Holy Spirit. God's covenant people are those whom He chooses and they live by faith as Abraham did.

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Never forget that we are saved by faith, a faith that is given, and we are all adopted sons and daughters in Christ for His glory.

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I'll leave you with one more reference in Ephesians 2, 8 and 10.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no man may boast.

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For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.