The Types of Christ · The Appointed Patterns
Circumcision of the Heart
God gave Abraham a sign cut into the body. Then, through Moses and through Jeremiah, He kept asking for the same thing to be done to the heart — in the same Hebrew word, and long before the New Testament existed. This page follows one command across a thousand years.
The Sign Given
— Genesis 17 — a real mark, on a real body, for a real covenantTHE ARTWORKPhilippe de Champaigne paints Moses holding the tablets out toward the viewer rather than clutching them, and gives him no crowd, no mountain, no theatre — just a man and the commands in his hands. That is the posture this page begins in. The first command it follows is Moses’: circumcise your heart. Everything else on the page is what happened to that command afterwards.
Before any of it becomes a picture of anything, it is a knife. God gives Abraham a covenant sign to be cut into the body of every male in his household, and calls it exactly that: a token of the covenant between Me and you. It is permanent, it is physical, and it is not optional — the man who refuses it is cut off from his people.
The page starts here, and stays here for a moment, because the inward reading only means anything if the outward sign meant something first. A picture of nothing is a picture of nothing.
God also said to Abraham, “You must keep My covenant—you and your descendants in the generations after you. This is My covenant with you and your descendants after you, which you are to keep: Every male among you must be circumcised. You are to circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. Generation after generation, every male must be circumcised when he is eight days old, including those born in your household and those purchased from a foreigner—even those who are not your offspring. Whether they are born in your household or purchased, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh will be an everlasting covenant. But if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”'It shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you' — the sign, its subjects, and the penalty for refusing it.
Moreover, we learn from the Scripture itself, that God gave circumcision, not as the completer of righteousness, but as a sign, that the race of Abraham might continue recognisable. For it declares: "God said unto Abraham, Every male among you shall be circumcised; and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, as a token of the covenant between Me and you."
Irenaeus of Lyons· Against Heresies, Book IV, 202Church Father
Genesis 17:10
Irenaeus, writing around AD 180, is careful in a way later writers often were not. The sign was not what made a man righteous — but it was a real sign, given for a real purpose, and he says what the purpose was: so that the family of Abraham would stay recognisable. Nothing in that sentence takes anything away from Israel.
The Old Testament Turns the Word Inward
— Deuteronomy 10 · Deuteronomy 30 · Jeremiah 4 — and no vocabulary changesAt the far end of Deuteronomy, Moses asks Israel for something that sounds, at first hearing, impossible: circumcise the foreskin of your heart. He is not reaching for a new metaphor. He uses the same verb Genesis 17 uses of the body, and the same noun for what comes off. Twenty chapters later he says it again — and this time God is the one doing it.
Then Jeremiah, roughly eight centuries after Moses, repeats the command word for word. Which tells you something plainly: it had not been done.
And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good? Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. And He has chosen you, their descendants after them, above all the peoples, even to this day. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.What does the LORD require of you — and then, at verse 16, the command about the heart.
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.The same verb, but now God is the subject: He will circumcise your heart, so that you may love Him.
For this is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your unplowed ground, and do not sow among the thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds.”Break up your fallow ground; circumcise yourselves to the LORD — the command, centuries on.
Circumcise - Rest not in your bodily circumcision, but seriously set upon that substantial work which is signified thereby: cleanse your hearts from all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, fitly compared to the foreskin, which if not cut off, made persons profane, unclean and odious in the sight of God.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Deuteronomy 10:16
Circumcise - the foreskin of your heart - A plain proof from God himself that this precept pointed out spiritual things, and that it was not the cutting away a part of the flesh that was the object of the Divine commandment, but the purification of the soul, without which all forms and ceremonies are of no avail. Loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, the heart being circumcised to enable them to do it, was, from the beginning, the end, design, and fulfillment of the whole law.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Deuteronomy 10:16
What we translate as "be circumcised to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your hearts," Symmacus renders as "be purified to the Lord and remove the malice from your hearts," understanding circumcision as purification and the foreskin as vice.
Jerome· Six Books on Jeremiah 1:70.1-4, 420Church Father
Jeremiah 4:4
He clearly brought out that the visible circumcision is a type of the invisible, and that if there is circumcision within, bodily circumcision is unnecessary. Taking a lead from this text, the divine apostle wrote to the Romans, "A person is not a Jew, you …
Theodoret of Cyrus· On Jeremiah 1:4.4, 458Church Father
Jeremiah 4:4
Deuteronomy 30:6 — the promise, and a commentator who would not call it spent
God will circumcise thine heart - This promise remains yet to be fulfilled. Their heart, as a people, has never yet been circumcised; nor have the various promises in this chapter been ever yet fulfilled. There remaineth, therefore, a rest for this people of God.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Deuteronomy 30:6
Clarke is reading the promise as still standing. He looks at Deuteronomy 30, notes that the chapter’s promises have not yet landed on Israel as a people, and refuses to close the account — there remaineth, therefore, a rest for this people of God. That is a nineteenth-century Methodist declining to say the promise was quietly transferred somewhere else, and it belongs on this page more than any other quotation on it.
The One Command, Four Times
— the verb never changes — the hand doesSet the four passages side by side and one thing jumps out that no English translation can show you. It is the same word every time. Hebrew mul occurs thirty-seven times in the Old Testament, eleven of them in Genesis 17 alone, and the heart-verses use it without so much as a signal that anything has changed. What changes is the subject of the verb.
One Hebrew verb, four times · and the hand holding the knife keeps changing
1 · The sign
Genesis 17:10הִמּוֹל hi.Mol
“shall be circumcised”Who cuts
Abraham
on the body — a real, permanent mark, given as the token of a covenant
2 · The command
Deuteronomy 10:16וּמַלְתֶּם u.mal.Tem
“and you shall circumcise”עָרְלַת 'a.re.Lat
“the foreskin of”Who cuts
You
on your own heart — the same verb, and the same physical noun for what comes off
3 · The promise
Deuteronomy 30:6וּמָל u.Mal
“and he will circumcise”Who cuts
God
the same verb, twenty chapters later, with the subject changed
4 · The command again
Jeremiah 4:4Who cuts
You
again — roughly eight centuries after Moses, and still being asked for
5 · Made without hands
Colossians 2:11περιτομή peritomē
“circumcision”ἀχειροποιήτῳ acheiropoiētō
“made without hands”Who cuts
Christ
the Greek word for 'made without hands' occurs three times in the whole New Testament
Paul Is Quoting Moses
— Romans 2:28-29 and Philippians 3:3 — the New Testament's own useRomans 2 is often read as the moment Paul breaks with the Old Testament. Read alongside Deuteronomy it is the opposite: he is standing on it. Wesley, annotating the verse in 1755, does not even argue the point — he simply gives the reference.
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If a man who is not circumcised keeps the requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? The one who is physically uncircumcised yet keeps the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A man is not a Jew because he is one outwardly, nor is circumcision only outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew because he is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise does not come from men, but from God.Circumcision profits if you keep the law — and the real Jew is one inwardly, by the Spirit, not the letter.
But he is a Jew - That is, one of God's people. Who is one inwardly - In the secret recesses of his soul. And the acceptable circumcision is that of the heart - Referring to Deut. xxx, 6; the putting away all inward impurity.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Romans 2:29
For he is not a Jew - In the most important sense, that is, one of God's beloved people. Who is one in outward show only; neither is that the true, acceptable circumcision, which is apparent in the flesh.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Romans 2:28
Thus, he rebukes not circumcision (which he apparently respects), but the one who insults or transgresses it.
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Romans, 1107Eastern Orthodox
Romans 2:28
Theophylact catches the distinction the passage actually makes. Paul is not attacking the rite. He respects it — he says so two sentences later, and again in chapter three. What he is after is the man who carries the sign and breaks the covenant it stands for.
It is clear why Paul denies that the circumcision of the flesh has any merit with God. For Abraham was not justified because he was circumcised; rather, he was justified because he believed, and afterward he was circumcised. It is the circumcision of the heart …
Ambrosiaster· Commentary on Paul's Epistles, 384Church Father
Romans 2:29
That is Romans 4:9-11’s argument, four centuries early, and it is the cleanest ancient statement of the order: Abraham believed, was counted righteous, and then received the sign. Justification by Faith →
The artwork
Lievens paints Paul reading rather than writing, and that is the reason this plate sits in this section rather than beside a quotation. The claim of these three paragraphs is that Romans 2 is Paul with Deuteronomy open in front of him — a man working from a text he already had, not a man inventing a doctrine. Lievens gives him the book, the light on the page, and an expression that is thinking rather than proclaiming.
Jan Lievens, The Apostle Paul (1627) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—'We are the circumcision' — Paul takes the covenant word and applies it, without cancelling anything.
Are the only true circumcision - The people now in covenant with God. Who worship God in spirit - Not barely in the letter, but with the spiritual worship of inward holiness.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Philippians 3:3
"We are the (real) circumcision" (Ro 2:25-29; Col 2:11). worship God in the Spirit--The oldest manuscripts read, "worship by the Spirit of God"; our religious service is rendered by the Spirit (Joh 4:23, 24). Legal worship was outward, and consisted in outward acts, restricted to certain times and places.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Philippians 3:3
Colossians 2, and the Question It Raises
— one sentence holds circumcision and baptism together — and Christians read it two waysIn Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.Circumcised with a circumcision made without hands — and buried with Him in baptism, in the next breath.
A wondrous benefaction, that you received circumcision in Christ. For it was not a human hand that performed this circumcision of the flesh, but the Holy Spirit: not a part is circumcised, but the whole man. There, through circumcision, through the removal of the covering …
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Colossians, 1107Eastern Orthodox
Colossians 2:11
In whom also ye are circumcised - All that was designed by circumcision, literally performed, is accomplished in them that believe through the Spirit and power of Christ. It is not a cutting off of a part of the flesh, but a putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, through the circumcision of Christ; he having undergone and performed this, and all other rites necessary to qualify him to be a mediator between God and man; for, being made under the law, he was subject to all its ordinances, and every act of his contributed to the salvation of men. But by the circumcision of Christ, the operation of his grace and Spirit may be intended; the law required the circumcision of the flesh, the Gospel of Christ required the circumcision of the heart.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Colossians 2:11
Clarke’s last clause is the sentence to hold on to: the law required the circumcision of the flesh, the Gospel of Christ required the circumcision of the heart. The Greek behind “made without hands” is ἀχειροποίητος — a word that occurs three times in the whole New Testament, and carries this verse’s entire claim.
Why this verse is argued over
Paul puts circumcision and baptism into a single sentence, and that placement is the home verse of one of the oldest disagreements between Christian brothers. If baptism answers to circumcision, and circumcision was given to the infant sons of believing households, then — the argument runs — baptism belongs to the children of believers on the same covenant footing. That is the case made in the Reformed and Presbyterian confessional tradition, and held in different forms by Lutherans and Anglicans; it is a covenant argument, not a sentimental one, and it deserves to be met at its strongest.
Baptist and believers’-baptism readers answer from the same two verses: verse 12 says buried with Him through faith in the working of God, and they take the sentence to describe what happens to a believer rather than to establish who may receive the sign. Both readings are held by people who love this passage and read it carefully.
This page does not settle it, and it is not the place to. What this page is for is the thread from Genesis 17 to Colossians 2 — and that thread runs the same either way. The baptism question has its own page, where both positions are laid out with the people who hold them.
A commentator who reached for baptism unpromptedJamieson, Fausset & Brown on Deuteronomy 10:16
The connection is not a modern invention, and it is not only made by people arguing a case. Annotating Moses’ command about the heart, Jamieson reaches across the whole Bible to 1 Peter 3:21 on his own initiative — nobody asked him the baptism question.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart--Here he teaches them the true and spiritual meaning of that rite, as was afterwards more strongly urged by Paul (Ro 2:25, 29), and should be applied by us to our baptism, which is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God" [1Pe 3:21].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Deuteronomy 10:16
Stephen's One Word — and a Step This Page Refuses
— Acts 7:51, Jeremiah 9, Romans 3:1-2On trial for his life, Stephen ends his defence with one word that nobody else in the New Testament ever uses: ἀπερίτμητος — uncircumcised. It occurs exactly once in the whole New Testament, right there, and it is not his own coinage. It is Jeremiah’s charge, quoted back at the Sanhedrin in the Sanhedrin’s own Scriptures. Stephen is not introducing a new accusation. He is reading them their file.
You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.'Uncircumcised in heart and ears' — the single occurrence of the word, and it is a quotation.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised yet uncircumcised: Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”The charge Stephen is quoting: all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.
Acts 7 is also the frame of another page on this shelf — Stephen’s speech is the New Testament’s own reading of Joseph. The two pages meet at this verse. Stephen, the First Martyr →
Now the step this page will not take. From the fact that the inward reality is what God was always after, it is a short move to saying the outward sign was worthless and the covenant with Israel is finished. Several honoured ancient writers made exactly that move, and some of their sentences sit in this page’s own source material. They are not quoted here.
The reason is not delicacy. It is that Paul, having just finished the hardest thing he says about circumcision, immediately asks the obvious follow-up question — and answers it the other way.
What, then, is the advantage of being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.'What advantage then hath the Jew?' — 'Much every way.' The next sentence after Romans 2:29.
Read the two chapters in order and the shape is unmistakable. Paul turns the sign inward without emptying it, and God’s covenant purposes for Israel stand. A reader deserves to know where Paul stopped and where his interpreters kept going. Israel and the Olive Tree →
Where Marcus Lands
— the founder's own note on this pageThis page lays out the thread and names the places Christians read it differently. Where Marcus lands — on Colossians 2, and on what the old sign means for a believer now — is his to write.