The apostle has just written, "Ye are complete in Him", and now proposes a severe

test. To the Jew, and also to the Christian Jew, circumcision was essential, as was

baptism, its equivalent, to the Christian of the Acts period.

The rite of circumcision is introduced in the Scriptures in connection with Abraham

and the birth of Ishmael. The birth of Ishmael was the result of the intrusion of the flesh

into the purposes of grace and promise.  The following sequence in the history of

Abraham will enable the reader to see where and why circumcision was instituted.

(1) God promises to Abraham a seed (Gen. 15:); Abraham believes God, and

it is accounted unto him for righteousness.  Justification by faith is here

experienced and foreshadowed. There is, however, something more than this.

While justification is a necessary beginning, it is not by any means the end.

(2) Time passes, and the promised seed does not come. Faith is sorely tried,

and at length a scheme is propounded whereby God shall, as it were, be helped

out with His purposes. Hagar, the bondwoman, becomes the mother of Ishmael

(Gen. 16:).

(3) While this departure from the path of faith cannot alter justification, it does

indicate that Abraham had much further to go before he could be pronounced

"perfect". And so in Gen. 17: we find: "Walk before Me and be thou perfect"

(Compare Col. 1: 28: "that we may present every man perfect"). Ishmael is

repudiated as the seed and the true seed again promised; and it is here, in this

connection of parenthood, that circumcision is introduced. To Abraham, only too

conscious of the part that the flesh had played in the birth of Ishmael, this strange

rite would speak eloquently of its repudiation. While Abraham could be justified

without circumcision, he could not be perfected without it. In Phil. 3:, before

the apostle speaks of "perfection" he speaks of circumcision:  "We are the

circumcision which . . . . . have no confidence in the flesh" (verse 3).

The analysis of Gen. 15:-17:, so far as it bears upon our subject, is as follows:--