The remarkable sign of this perpetual covenant is Circumcision. For thus says the Lord; “This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any stranger who is not your descendant. He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:10-13).
This perpetual covenant has been perpetuated in Jesus Christ through His circumcision eight days after His birth, when His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. In Christ Jesus we were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Since according to God’s abundant mercy He has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in Him we all live and move and have our existence, His circumcision then fulfills and perpetuates the term of the covenant for every human being.
Through Jesus Christ, God is now our God and we are also heirs according to the promise. Those who were once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Un-circumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, and who at that time were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope, and without God in the world, are now in Christ Jesus, have been drawn near by the blood of Christ, and now in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor un-circumcision avails anything, but faith working through love and by being a new creation.
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