Peter Barnes: Circumcision: The Old Covenant Sign, Genesis 17:9-14 (19 April 2020 Evening )
God gives circumcision as a sign and seal of His covenant with Abram, who is here renamed ‘Abraham’ – 17:1-8, 15-19. This is fulfilled in the coming of Christ Jesus – Rom.4:16. 1. God attaches a sign and seal to His covenant – 17:10-14. Abraham already was a believer (Rom.4:9-12). But God adds circumcision as the sign and seal of the covenant. – Faith is the instrument of the covenant; circumcision is the sign and seal. Abraham obeyed – 17:23-27. Circumcision has a spiritual meaning – Deut.10:16; Jer.4:4; Rom.2:28-29.
2. The promise is to you and to your children. – 17:12, 14. Moses seems to have been slack here – Ex.4:24-26. – Calvin: ‘he is a little serpent descended from the line of the Serpent’. But this goes with 1 Corinthians 7:14. Calvin: ‘pledges of the love he [God] has for us’.
3. The covenant is everlasting. – Gen.17:9, 13, 19. In the New Testament circumcision is treated as neither here nor there – 1 Cor.7:19; Gal.5:6; 6:15.But not if you regarded it as that which made you right with God – Gal.5:2-4. The covenant is everlasting, but the sign is not. See Gal.3:27-29. Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 95: ‘To whom is baptism to be administered?’ The answer is: ‘Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.’ Hence households are baptized – Acts 2:38-39; 16:15, 33; 1 Cor.1:16; 7:14.
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