- Aug 1, 2021
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Agreed. Thank you.It is impossible to get Premillennialist to actually acknowledge the wording of Scripture on this subject. Avoidance and personal opinion is their sole argument. To rubbish it as "a modern term" is wrong and unwise. I will try and submit the NT evidence again in the hope I can get you to acknowledge NT truth here.
You need to see that there is a natural seed and a spiritual seed. The natural seed have one birth. The spiritual seed has two births. The first seed is from below. The second seed is from above. One is carnal and the other belongs to God.
The Apostles declares in Romans 2:25-29: “For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit.”
Most Christians are aware that Scripture places men into one of two general ethnic camps in a natural sense – circumcision and uncircumcision (also known as Jew and Gentile). However, Scripture equally places men into one of two general ethnic camps in a spiritual sense – circumcision and uncircumcision (also known as Jew and Gentile).
In this reading Paul reveals a profound spiritual truth how physically uncircumcised Gentiles are viewed as the circumcised, and physically circumcised Jews are viewed as uncircumcised. This seems contradictory and mistaken. After all Jews are Jews and Gentiles are Gentiles. In a natural sense this is true, but in a spiritual sense this isn’t. Paul goes on to prove this. He shows how the title “Jew” and “circumcision” are choice spiritual titles that relate alone to the redeemed of God.
It is not that these terms don’t have natural meanings but that the natural sense carries no special merit with God. We learn (quoting from the American Standard Version), “For circumcision indeed profiteth, if thou be a doer of the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision.” Basically what he is saying is that if you are not a child of God your Jewishness means absolutely nothing.
Romans 2:25-29 is quite powerful in that it changes the nature and scope of what a real Jew (the “circumcision”) and a real Gentile (the “uncircumcision”) are in God’s eyes. God takes these common natural terms and spiritualises them, and in doing so redefines the whole argument of true identity.
The title “uncircumcision” (normally used to describe a Gentile) is amazingly used to describe the unbelieving Jew. Also, the title “circumcision” (normally used to describe a natural Jew) is amazingly used to describe the believing Gentile. This would have been anathema to the unbelieving Jews of Paul’s day. It would have been the greatest insult to a Jew.
A Jew today in God’s eyes is not physical but spiritual. Paul succinctly says, “he is a Jew, which is one inwardly.” Those that are born again, irrespective of nationality or color, are classed as true Jews.
Paul explains in Philippians 3:3, speaking of the international trans-ethnic Church, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
This couldn't be clearer: "we are the circumcision" who are "in the Spirit."
We are not natural Israel or natural Jews or natural circumcision or natural sons of Abraham (that means nothing anyway), we are the spiritual circumcision - the true circumcision. We are the only chosen people on planet earth.
Colossians 2:11-14 declares, “ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross"
These verses I quoted demonstrate that the old covenant has been abolished. The impotence of physical circumcision is inextricably connected to the impotence of the old covenant. There was a time before the cross when physical circumcision was integral to the believer's profession - natural Israel being exclusively His covenant people. That is no longer the case today. Circumcision is no longer physical but spiritual. His covenant people are the redeemed of all nations (Jew and Gentile) not merely natural Israelis. The old theocracy has gone for ever. God chosen people are the Church of Jesus Christ. The old covenant ordinances (including circumcision) have all been nailed to the tree of Calvary - thus their uselessness.
Galatians 3:7-9 also says, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
Those who have come to Christ by simple faith are here identified as the true children of Abraham. Paul takes an emotive term that the Jews earnestly coveted as exclusively their own (namely “Abraham’s seed”) and applied it to the New Testament Church (which contains Gentile Christians as well as Jews). He applies the covenant blessings of Abraham to a spiritual seed, in the form of the redeemed New Testament Church – made up of Jews and Gentiles. That Church was grafted into the true believing Israel in the Old Testament. They didn’t replace them as some would imagine, but were integrated into the “commonwealth (or citizenship) of Israel” and all the promises pertaining to the same; all this points to the organic and covenantal unity of the people of God. In several places, Paul takes descriptions or terms that pertained exclusively to the earthly nation of Israel in an Old Covenant context and applies them to the Church in a New Covenant context. In an Old Covenant context, the terms “Israel,” “Abraham’s seed,” Jew “the circumcision” related solely to those within natural Israel (including Gentile converts), but in a New Covenant context these terms take on a spiritual significance.
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