Thirteen years have passed since Ishmael was born (Genesis 16:16) and Abraham is now ninety-nine years old (17:1). This was the time when YHWH changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “father of many” to confirm YHWH’s promise to make him “a father of many nations” (5).
But the ninety-nine year old Abraham was in for quite a surprise when YHWH requires him and every male in his household “to undergo circumcision” as “the sign of the covenant between me and you” (11). From now on it was cut off the foreskin or be “cut off from being God’s people” (14). Blunt, yes, but this was “God Almighty (El Shaddai)” speaking (1), and this was his will, that Abraham and his descendants “walk before me and be blameless.”
So YHWH in his love initiates an incredible covenant, but in all his covenants there’s a part the people play too – which in this case was circumcision. It would act as a daily reminder of their intent (and their need as God’s people) to “walk before him and be blameless.”
But what was YHWH really after in requiring this painful physical circumcision? Surely there had to be a deeper purpose to it, that was meant to reach down into their inner being too, to create some sort of transformation in their thinking perhaps.
And that’s exactly what it was meant to do. When YHWH later confirms his covenant promise in Deuteronomy 30:1-5, he adds this statement in verse 6, that the “Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all your heart and soul, and live.”
So YHWH had them make a circumcision cut to their bodies because it pictured what he was really after, a cut to their hearts, like what happened in Acts 2:37, when the Jews realized they’d crucified Jesus and “they were cut to the heart.” Now at last they saw God’s plan, that in Jesus he was fulfilling all his promises to Abraham, so to Jesus they would now direct all their faith, love and obedience. Which is exactly what the Spirit had come to do in them – and would also do in future for all those “the Lord our God will call” (39).
So what started as a physical cut to the body became a spiritual cut to the heart, so that “walking before God and being blameless” as YHWH requires becomes something we love doing.
Is this then what YHWH was doing with Abraham, bringing him “From obedience to trust to love”?….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 