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"For we are the Circumcision, who are serving God in spirit, and boasting in Christ
Jesus, and have no confidence in flesh" (3).
There is indirect allusion, by way of severe contrast, to this in verses 18, 19. In
Col. 2: 11 we read how this circumcision was accomplished.
"In whom ye were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the
putting off of the body of the flesh (no reference to sin, the A.V. reading is not supported
by best texts) by the circumcision of Christ."
We said above that the taking up of our cross was a voluntary act, so also in some
respects was the performance of the rite of circumcision. True, little children of eight
days old could have no volition in the matter, but its institution and occasional examples
help to show that it was something over and above a type of redemption. When and
under what terms was circumcision instituted? In Gen. 15: we read that Abram believed
in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness. Paul, when quoting this in
Romans 4:, insists on the fact that Abram was uncircumcised. Some time elapses, and
events transpire that show that Abram still had confidence in the flesh; true, Abram
believed that which God had told him--so indeed did Sarai--but Hagar an Egyptian is
brought in to help to accomplish the unconditional covenant of God! "and Abram was
fourscore and six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram" (16: 16). Thirteen years
pass by without record, and when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord
appeared to him and said, "I am the Almighty God (El Shaddai, `the God Who is
enough'), walk before Me, and be thou perfect" (17: 1). After speaking in unconditional
terms during which Abram's name is changed, the Lord speaks of a covenant which
Abraham was to keep (10):--
"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after
thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised."
This is additional to the covenant already made with Abraham, and follows the
covenant to walk before the Lord and be perfect. Circumcision may be expressed
doctrinally as the repudiation of the flesh; to put away the flesh is not an easy thing,
indeed it is painful in the extreme; to endeavour to consistently live as becometh this high
standard will call one into fellowship with the suffering, the reproach, the hatred, the
shame that made up the dreadful cup of Gethsemane and Calvary: this is conformity to
His death. Crucifixion is the word used by inspiration to define the dread ordeal, "they
that are Christ's crucified the flesh with the affections and desires" (Gal. 5: 24). Paul's
attitude to those who desired a fair show in the flesh was:--
"God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6: 14).
Can we, with the things of this world clinging about us within and without, can we
dare to say that crucifixion is not too strong a term? If we cannot, if the flesh in its many
guises is still pampered, if the world, the highest and the best of the world, is not
discerned as it is truly in the light of God, we must say, "not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfected". To grasp the import of this conformity to the