Circumcision and Citizenship
A Controversial Debate in the Early Church with Relevance Today
The issue of circumcision was one of the biggest issues with which the early church wrestled. It is hard for Christians today to understand why circumcision was such a divisive issue. There are several reasons we struggle to understand the significance of circumcision, but also several reasons this first-century debate has a lot of 21st-century relevance.
Sign of the Covenant
After the Flood, God made a covenant, “Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11). Then God said, “I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13). The rainbow serves as “a sign of the covenant.”
God later uses the same language about circumcision, “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you” (Genesis 17:11). In the same way that a rainbow was a visual marker, token, or sign of God’s covenant with the whole world, circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants.
A “token” or “sign” was a common feature of ancient covenants, but it is also standard in modern wedding ceremonies. By exchanging rings, the couple is giving one another a sign of their covenant. The rings mark the husband as belonging to the wife, and the wife as belonging to the husband. The rings remind those within the covenant, as well as those on the outside, that promises have been made and must be kept.
Similarly, circumcision was a gift God gave to Israel to mark them as belonging to him as his special people. The males of the nation, as representatives of each family, carried around this token of the covenant everywhere they went.
Removing the Flesh
On a literal level, circumcision was removing a piece of flesh (foreskin). However, it could also be understood as a metaphor, concerning what God wanted to do with the hearts of his people. It wasn’t merely the literal flesh that God wanted circumcised, it was the heart of every Israelite. Moses said:
“Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”
- Deuteronomy 10:15-16
In other words, circumcision should have been an outward sign of what was supposed to happen to the heart. The rebellious, sinful, and stubborn flesh around the heart should be metaphorically “cut away” and removed. To be circumcised in the flesh but not in the heart was essentially a lie, a type of hypocrisy. Such people were pretending to be God’s people. Jeremiah said, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh” (Jeremiah 9:25).
Unfortunately, we have a tendency to compartmentalize our lives: religious vs. secular, spiritual vs. physical. The sign of circumcision was supposed to be both spiritual and physical. Unfortunately, sometimes circumcision was merely external and physical. God viewed those people as being the same as uncircumcised Gentiles (Jeremiah 9:26).
National and Ethnic Boundary
If you want to understand why circumcision was so controversial in the first-century church, consider how some nations think about walls, fences, borders, and boundaries. There is a nationalistic impulse to protect a nation’s way of life from outside influence. When the borders start being blurred, many people become anxious and defensive.
After the Exile, the “nation of Israel” was not a place on a map, they were a diaspora (a dispersed people group). The boundary between the nation of Israel and the Gentiles was not on the ground, but on their bodies. Regardless where he lived, the mark of circumcision was the mark that divided a Jew from the rest of the world.
When you think about circumcision, think about other national and ethnic symbols, signs, and markers. This category might help us understand the nationalistic impulse to defend it.
The Fight for Circumcision
When the Gospel was proclaimed on Pentecost, there were 3,000 who were baptized in repentant faith (Acts 2). These people lived in various places and spoke several different languages. However, all of the men were (presumably) circumcised. These Jewish Christians did not see themselves as converting from “Judaism” to “Christianity.” They saw themselves as pledging their loyalty and allegiance to Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, who had been killed and raised from the dead.
For many years, the church was made up exclusively of circumcised (Jewish) followers of Jesus. For them, following Jesus was not a change of religion, but a continuation of their national and religious hope that YHWH would send a Messiah to save their people. They rightfully believed God had kept his promises to rescue and redeem the nation of Israel.
So, of course, when the Good News about God’s kingdom was preached to uncircumcised people, many insisted that these Gentiles be circumcised. After all, in pledging their allegiance to Israel’s King, Gentiles were essentially immigrating into the nation of Israel. They were trying to become part of the family and have a share in Israel’s future inheritance of “the world” (Romans 4:13).
Many Jewish Christians told Gentiles, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). This statement was religious, but was also political and nationalistic. They were (wrongly) claiming circumcision was necessary to be part of the kingdom that God was saving from this present evil age. How in the world, they thought, can someone think they are a part of God’s covenant people without the sign of circumcision?
Circumcision and the Gospel
This debate is at least part of the underlying context of many books of the New Testament. You can especially see its prominence in the books of Acts, Galatians, and Ephesians. The books of Romans and Colossians have relevance for this conversation as well.
It is understandable why some circumcised Christians felt like Gentile inclusion within the kingdom was essentially an invasion of their nation. But this impulse, as understandable as it might be, was NOT according the will of our King. The answer from Jesus, given through the apostles, was that ALL faith-led, Spirit-filled, baptized followers of Jesus had equal standing in the true Israel. Every single Christian—on either side of the circumcision boundary—was considered a full-fledged child of Abraham. Paul wrote, “If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29).
Uncircumcised believers were now “fellow citizens” (Ephesians 2:19). The “dividing wall” between circumcised and uncircumcised was torn down in Christ (Ephesians 2:14). When a person was baptized, Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, that person was spiritually circumcised by Jesus (Colossians 2:11-15). The Holy Spirit—and his fruit—was now the true sign of the covenant. This was the evidence that a person’s heart was truly circumcised and they belonged to the covenant people of God (Galatians 5:16-25).
Conclusion
I hope you can see that this debate is incredibly relevant for Christians today. It is not so much about, “who is going to heaven?” That wasn’t the question they were asking. It’s much more relevant (and controversial) than that.
This debate teaches us to ask questions like these:
Regardless of where you live, to what nation/kingdom do you see yourself belonging?
Are there symbols, markers, tokens, or signs that you expect others to have in order to include them in your tribe?
Who do you really see as “fellow citizens”?
Are you helping Jesus tear down the walls and boundaries that exist between brothers and sisters in Christ from different tribes, nations, and languages?
I love you and God loves you,
Wes McAdams