What Is Circumcision?
Circumcision in the Bible is the bodily sign of the covenant made with Abraham: in Genesis God commands that every male of Abraham's line be circumcised and defines this as the mark of the covenant. In Israel it was performed on the eighth day after birth and showed the child's belonging to the covenant people; Jesus too was circumcised on the eighth day. Even within the Old Testament the heart of the sign is recalled: the call to 'Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart' stresses that the outward mark is insufficient without inner devotion. In the New Testament era, whether believers from the nations had to be circumcised became the early church's most important dispute; the meeting in Jerusalem decided not to lay this burden on them. Paul teaches that in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters; what counts is faith working through love and the new creation, and he defines true circumcision as the Spirit's work in the heart.