Pictures from the Old Testament: Circumcision and the Messiah

Circumcision can be a delicate matter, but it's used in the Bible as a picture of our salvation in Christ.  So let's see if we can explore the idea, shall we?

Circumcision was common among many of the nations of the ancient near east, where Abraham was called by God.  The Lord ordered Abraham and his male descendents to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant God had instituted with him: (Gen. 17:1-14).  If foreigners wanted to join the covenant community, their males would also be circumcised, so that act became a sort of initiation ritual.  Any man who didn't carry the identifying sign of the covenant, or fulfill various other rituals of the Old Covenant, would himself be "cut off" (either thrown out of the community or killed). 

Figuratively, God began to use "circumcision of the heart" in the Hebrew scriptures to look forward to a day of changed hearts and obedience to God from an inward motivation.  See Deut. 10:16 and 30:6.  In Jeremiah 4:4 the prophet says the people should circumcise their hearts, but that is figurative in more ways than one, because they couldn't change their hearts; God was looking forward to a whole new covenant. 

But there's another level of understanding.  In a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 53, verse 8 says that this suffering servant would be unjustly 'cut off':  "Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream.  But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people."  Daniel 9:26 also describes how this Anointed One (Hebrew "messiah") would be cut off.  Jesus, as we know, had no sin in himself, but he took on all our sin and died to take it all away (2 Cor 5:21).   He was "cut off," in our place, to bear the blame and the shame of all humanity being "uncircumcised in heart and ears" (Acts 7:51).  So this ancient practice, in a sense, pre-figured not only our own salvation and change of heart, but also the Messiah himself -- Jesus the Christ. 

God has designed a system of symbols and meanings, written into scripture, to show us who he is and how he loves us in many different ways.  This is just one more symbol or idea from the Hebrew Scriptures that looks forward to Jesus.  After all, it's all about him!