Circumcision of the Heart

Deuteronomy 30:6

The sign of circumcision which God demanded of the Jews was a physical sign of a spiritual promise. Paul explained it as, “A seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also” (Romans 4:11). Abraham accepted circumcision as a sign that he was declared to be righteous upon his faith, and that this righteousness would be passed onto his children through circumcision.

Circumcision was the physical sign of the Covenant of God with Abraham. When man procreated, the seed had to pass through the sign of the Covenant, thus passing that Covenant on to the next generation. Paul stated that the New Covenant had no need of this act, for Abraham was actually declared to be righteous while he was still in uncircumcision (Romans 4:9), and that “them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised”, would have righteousness imputed to them as well (Romans 4:12).

God had a higher plan for mankind than physical circumcision. He introduces the concept of the New Covenant plan of heart change through Moses’ farewell speech to Israel in Deuteronomy 30:6 when he says that He will “circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live”. This was a new concept to Israel, that God could change their heart, independent of their ability to do the good or shun the evil. The usage of “circumcision” made it clear to them that God intended to do a sort of spiritual surgery on their heart, changing them from the inside out.

How spectacular this must have sounded to a law-abiding Jew! The law requires a man to change from the outside in. It is a show of will-power and determination, which is visible to everyone. If you are keeping the law, it is seen by all and if you are breaking it, that is known as well. Attention is always being drawn to your works or the lack thereof, even in the ceremony of the sacrifice. If men saw you coming to the tabernacle carrying a lamb, they knew that you had done something wrong. The law was holy and good, but it constantly exposed how unholy and bad that men were.

Grace, however, changes a man from the inside out. It must, for God promised the cutting of the heart instead of the cutting of the body. One of the promises that God speaks through the prophet Ezekiel, regarding the New Covenant and the work of grace was “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you…And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27). God saw the necessity of putting a “new heart” within man, and His very own Holy Spirit as well, so that man would live righteous without their own efforts being involved.

Does law teach us how to live right? No! Only God’s grace can do that, for Paul said, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11, 12). Grace does the teaching in us, for He is living there. Hallelujah!

The Serpent of Brass

Numbers 21:5-9

Without a proper understanding of precisely what happened to Jesus at the cross, this story of the brazen serpent on the pole makes no sense. First, how could looking at anything affixed to a pole bring healing in the body? Second, and perhaps most important, why would God chose a snake as His symbol? Every Sunday school student knows that the snake first appears in the Garden of Eden and that he is a cursed creature.

To answer these questions, we must realize what happened in this story and why. The Israelites were complaining to Moses about the lack of water and their weariness with manna. They call it “light” in the King James Version, but the word is “worthless” in Hebrew. They are so sickened by God’s provision that they deem it as “worthless”.

In response, God allows “fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6). Remember, this incident occurs while the Israelites are under the Law, thus the Old Covenant must be honored. Though they are undeserving of any mercy, the Israelites beg Moses to ask the Lord to “take away the serpents from us”.

God instructs Moses to make a fiery serpent and place it upon a pole. Every person who has been bit can look upon it and they are promised life. Moses obeys, forming the serpent out of brass, and God honors His promise to heal all who gaze upon it. Jesus speaks of this incident in His conversation with Nicodemus when He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14, 15). Jesus places Himself in the position of the brazen serpent, stating that He will be lifted up, which happens at Calvary. He then substitutes the “looking upon the serpent” with “whosoever believeth”. Where the Israelites were simply told to look upon the snake and they would live, Jesus states that people will have to “believe in him”. This is the role of faith in your salvation, and it is the answer to the first question that we posed: How could looking at anything affixed to a pole bring healing in the body? Your faith in what Jesus did at Calvary brings healing and redemption from the poison of sin.

That leaves us with the second question: Why would God chose a snake as His symbol? The serpent is a symbol of sin having been judged, thus it is brass, which comes from being placed in the fire. Jesus was made to be sin for us at the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21), and He bore the curse of sin, just as a serpent is cursed (Galatians 3:13). By showing Israel a serpent of brass, God was saying that the curse of sin will be judged, and that this judgment would provide redemption for all who believed. Jesus fulfilled this to perfection, bearing the blow of death that was meant for us, so that we might have eternal life.

This incident came to a head when Jesus proclaimed, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Jesus never calls His Father, “God” except at this moment, for it is the first and last time that He has been separated from Him by our sins. God could not continue fellowship with Jesus in that moment, prompting Jesus to address Him as “God”, so that we could always address Him as “Father”.

Thank God for that serpent of brass, cursed for you and for me!

The Roasted Lamb

Exodus 12:3-13

God’s method of dealing with the failure of mankind has always been by the shedding of blood of the innocent. He chose a lamb as His primary sacrifice, for the lamb is a follower from birth, and has no inclination to attack and no mechanism by which to defend.

The progression of God’s redemptive plan is remarkable through the Word; beginning with a lamb for a man with the sacrifice of Abel. Then, when God was to bring Israel out of Egyptian bondage it was “a lamb for a house” (Exodus 12:3). Once God had the children of Israel in the wilderness it became a lamb for the entire nation when the priest offered the sacrifice annually on the Day of Atonement. Finally, John the Baptist testified of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God started with the man, then moved to the house, then the nation, then the world. As sin progressed outward, God’s provision was always greater.

In the case of the “lamb for a house”, God was establishing what would come to be known as Passover. The Jews in Goshen were to kill a spotless lamb after 4 days of examination to determine that it was clean and pure. They were to kill it in the evening, a type of when Jesus would finally expire on the cross (at the time of the evening sacrifice), and then they were to mark the door posts of their house with its blood. This marking of the door with the blood was an act of faith which is typified by every believer placing their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. When God came by, typical of the judgment of God, He saw the blood, showing Him that something had already died. Unwilling to kill twice, He would pass over that house, thus the name, Passover. When God sees the blood of Jesus on your heart, He passes judgment over you, for Christ has already bore your judgment.

The Israelites would then take the body of the lamb into the house and roast it with fire (Exodus 12:8). They were further instructed not to eat it raw or watered down. The fire that roasted the lamb was a type of the judgment of God which landed upon Jesus at the cross. The necessity of eating it only roasted, not raw or watered down, is because only the crucified Christ does us any good. To honor the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, or to try and emulate the life of Jesus is to consume Him without the sacrifice of the cross attached. There is no salvation to be found in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, though these are great things. Salvation is found only in the sacrificial death of Jesus; for it was there that He bore the punishment for our sins.

Finally, they were told to eat all of the lamb and “let nothing of it remain until the morning” (Exodus 12:10). As the blood was God’s provision for the sin of His people, the roasted lamb was His provision for their physical bodies upon beginning the long journey to the Promised Land. The Psalmist wrote of this event, when nearly 3 million Jews came out of Egypt, “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Psalms 105:37). Only the eating of the roasted lamb as a type of the crucified Christ can explain how slaves, who toil 6 days a week under the desert sun, could come out of slavery without one feeble person among their tribes. His body is supernatural, and was given for us!

When we are saved, we have the blood applied to our heart and we consume the Lamb of God. Now, we partake of the ceremony of communion; eating the bread as His body and drinking the wine as His blood, for we are remembering what He did for us. Partake by faith of the finished work of Jesus, and receive the blessing of “not one feeble among their tribes”.

Jesus in the Old Testament

Genesis 14:17-20

One of the glorious aspects about the New Covenant is how it reveals to us Jesus in the Old Testament. Jesus introduced to us the manner in which to preach the Old Testament when He opened the scriptures and expounded to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). We would do well to remember this lesson, and do our due diligence to see Jesus in the pages of the Old Testament.

Hebrews 7 retells the story of Melchizedek, the priest who meets Abram after his slaughter of Chedorlaomer. Melchizedek is described as the “King of peace” (Hebrews 7:2). That is our first hint that this is Jesus, for Christ is the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Next, we learn that he is “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3). This is a perfect description of Jesus as God, with no beginning of days or end; with no parents to birth Him and no children left behind. As a man, Jesus had all of these things (you and I are His children, though He fathered none in the flesh (Isaiah 53:8)), but as God He qualifies. Then we get the final, most important piece of information about Melchizedek, he was “made like unto the Son of God” (Heb. 7:3).

When Melchizedek approaches Abram he brings him bread and wine (Genesis 14:18). This action would be repeated by Jesus in the Last Supper, when he broke the bread as His body and offered the cup as His blood. Paul felt such power in the ceremony of Communion that he repeated the words of our Lord, giving credence to the taking of Communion as more than a mere observance of Christ’s death and resurrection. In fact, Paul said that when we partake of the bread and the cup, we “do show the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

This giving of the bread and wine to Abram by Melchizedek was Christ’s pointing forward to the finished work of the cross. Jesus said of the bread, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). The breaking of Jesus’ body occurred at Calvary, so the breaking of bread symbolizes what His broken body accomplished. He said of the wine, “This cup is the New Testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). The blood of Jesus was spilled at the cross, so the wine symbolizes the justification, redemption and sanctification that are provided by faith in the finished work.

Abram’s response to this pre-incarnate meeting with Jesus was to tithe of everything that he had just taken (Genesis 14:20; Hebrews 7:4). A tithe is a tenth of what you have, and this practice has been around every since. No one instructed Abram to do this; he simply did it out of worship due to the revelation of the bread and the wine. Many are tithing to this day under the law, paying the Lord by obligation, not realizing that their giving should always be out of revelation, not of obligation (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Communion shows forth Jesus’ death, while tithing shows forth His life (Hebrews 7:8). Abram’s response to the death of the Son of God was to speak of the new life of the Son of God. When we dwell on Christ’s finished work, we show forth His resurrected life. Hallelujah!

No More Tears in Heaven

Revelation 21:4-6

Three things jump out at me from these three verses regarding our future residence in New Jerusalem. One is “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (verse 4); then “I make all things new” (verse 5), and finally, “It is done” (verse 6).

“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” is a reference to God finishing His work on the earth. For those who enter into the New Jerusalem they will never cry again, nor experience death or sorrow or any more pain. All things that plagued us before will be gone, for the old earth and its curse will have been removed. I like the promise that we will never cry again for all of our losses and hurts. Why would any of us even have tears in our eyes when we stand before an Almighty God? I think that it will have something to do with how great that He is when we see Him, and possibly we will cringe and cry when we remember how small that we made God, and how angry and how distant.

“I make all things new” is a promise that the new heaven will not be a stagnant place that we will become accustomed to and eventually bored with. Christ will always be creating wonderful and bountiful things for His beautiful bride to enjoy. I remember this line being used by Jesus in the film, “Passion of the Christ” when He is carrying His cross up Calvary’s hill. There is no biblical indication that He actually said that on the way to the cross, but His death there was certainly paying for the right to say it!

“It is done” guarantees that the whole of the redemption plan is accomplished. Jesus cried “It is finished” at the cross, and all has been finished every since, but the future events of Bible prophecy are yet to come to pass. Though already “finished” in heaven, they are yet to be “done” here on earth. When God is “done”, you and I will place our hands on our heavenly inheritance (verse 7), and we will drink of His fountain forever (verse 6).

Take these three glorious prophecies and reevaluate your own personal perception of your heavenly Father. See God now as you will see Him then. Make Him a big God, with boundless love, ready to bless His people and show them all of heaven’s mercies. When you stand before Him then, may He be just as big and wonderful as you believed that He was in this lifetime.

As He will make things new in heaven, may you know that He has made things new even now! All of your old is gone and your new is in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you see remnants of the old still lingering in your life, don’t fret, just rest in His finished work and let the Holy Spirit glorify Jesus.

Finally, see God as a finisher, not someone who is catching up. Too often, we see God as responding to the attacks of the enemy, but it is actually the other way around. Satan stirs when God has spoken and it is to frighten us away from where God wants us to be. God has done the work and Jesus has paid the price. Any fears and anxieties that come over you are a blatant attack of the devil to dissuade you from God’s intended plan. See your Father as having it all in His hands, and you will see His concern for you.

Manifested with Purpose

1 John 3:8

There are two purposes for which Jesus was manifested according to the 3rd chapter of 1 John: “to take away our sins” (verse 5), and “to destroy the works of the devil” (verse 8). These two things are the backbone of the Christian faith, and they are the principles of redemption upon which we hang our faith in God. Jesus has taken away the sins of the world, and He has destroyed all of Satan’s works.

That begs the question, “If Jesus took sins away and destroyed Satan’s works, then why do we still see sin in the world and see Satan working his works?” It is a valid question, and one that has caused some to stumble away from trusting the Bible as the inspired, infallible Word of God. The answer is found, of course, at the finished work of the cross.

Jesus took away the sin issue when he bore all of our sins in His body on the tree. The great gulf that separated man from God had been caused by sin, and Jesus spanned that gulf with His sacrifice, reconciling God back to man (2 Corinthians 5:19). All sin has been removed as an offence to God, and now man goes to hell not because of his sinful deeds, but because of his rejection of Jesus as his Savior (John 3:17, 18).

The second purpose for manifestation was to destroy the works of the devil. Satan is obviously still stirring about on the earth, in fact, Peter told us that our adversary the devil was “as a roaring lion”, walking about, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Notice that there is no mention of Satan’s actual attack, just a lot of roaming and noise, intended to scare his prey.

Paul mentions the “wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). “Wiles” are “tricks”, again, a form of smoke and mirrors presented by Satan to try and cause the believer to stumble. These tricks are necessary because Satan possesses no true power anymore, because of Christ’s finished work of the cross. Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). If Jesus has all of the power, how can Satan have any?

Jesus’ death at Calvary destroyed Satan’s ability to trap men in sin. When a person places their faith in Christ, they are made into a new creature and then righteousness comes out of them naturally, independent of efforts. This is why John says, “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous” (1 John 3:7). In other words, a man lives righteously because he is righteous inside. Take it further, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning” (verse 7). Just as a righteous man will commit righteous acts without effort, because he is righteous; a sinner will commit sin without effort, because he is a sinner. A work of the devil is to keep men in that cycle of sin, but a righteous man will not be caught in that cycle again, thus Satan’s work has been destroyed.

This does not guarantee that a Christian will never fall into sin again; it is simply a way of identifying those who are saved and those who are lost. If you never see righteousness come out of a person then you know that they are not the righteousness of God (1 John 3:10). The same is said for someone that does not love the brethren of the Lord (verse 10). Righteousness is coming out of you for you are His righteousness, having asked for Jesus to come into your heart. The love for your fellow believers has naturally followed. You are living proof of why Jesus was manifested.

The Grace of Life

1 Peter 3:6, 7

The gift of life is a tremendous example of God’s grace. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God has graced us with life and all good things. Our health, our sanity, our physical bodies, etc., are all because of the wonderful gift that God has given to us.

How to improve the life we have is a repeated concern of the Word of God. Jesus told us that He came so that we might have life and have it more abundant (John 10:10). This abundant life has nothing to do with heaven, but is to be had now by every believer. Peter gives advice to men and women as to how to live in the grace of this life to its fullest, specifically within the context of husband and wife.

He starts with the wife, calling her a daughter of Sara (1 Peter 3:6). Sara is the only person in the Bible to whom the Lord restored their youth while they were in their old age. If you are a daughter of Sara then you have grace upon your physical frame. Every woman should “Amen” that! There is a condition that says, “As long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement”. The doing well that the Apostle speaks of is qualified at the end, “not afraid with any amazement”. Doing well is not fearing the husband or the Lord. Living in trembling fear of your husband robs you of the joy of having your youth in your old age. The same principle applies towards your heavenly Father.

Husbands, we are next, being told to dwell with our wives, “according to knowledge” (1 Peter 3:7). “Knowledge” here is the Greek word “nossos” which means, “common sense”. We are to apply common sense to our dealings with our wives, which will cause us to honor her. Common sense should direct us to love and protect her as one who is “the weaker vessel” (verse 7). This is no insult ladies; for you were taken from man’s side, thus it is in his God-given instinct to shelter you under his arm. If he applies the common sense that God gave him, he will do this naturally.

The husband and wife are “heirs together of the grace of life”. Life is lived to its fullest when a man and woman share their hearts, minds and bodies. This is God’s design and it is fought against by the enemy with great force. Marriages between both saints and sinners are fought with equal fervor by Satan for marriage is instituted by God, and he wants to do all that he can to ruin couples from experiencing the grace of life.

Finally, all men should pay particularly close attention to the last phrase of verse 7: “that your prayers be not hindered”. When we pay honor to our wife and protect her as the weaker vessel, we ensure that our prayers get through to the Father. If you are giving no honor to your wife; abusing her verbally, ignoring her needs or treating her disrespectfully, then you are placing a hindrance between your prayers and heaven. I want nothing to stop my cries from going to my Father, so I want to honor my wife to the fullest, and I know that you do too.

Perfect marriages are not possible, because we act imperfectly, but we serve a perfect God who has designed a perfect union. Dwell according to this knowledge and enjoy the grace of life together.