Robert Stewart
Colossians 2:11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
The two main besetting sins by which the Church of God has in every age been afflicted are unbelief and hypocrisy. By the one, men are led to estrange themselves from God; and by the other to mock Him with insincere, most unworthy worship. The history of God’s chosen people in the Old Testament affords numerous melancholy instances of both sins. As a nation, the Israelites were far from being spiritually minded (indeed what nation ever was?) They were disposed to arrogate to themselves all the privileges which their ancestors, the patriarchs, possessed in the favour of God, but they seldom thought of walking with God, denying themselves, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims in this world, or looking for a heavenly country, as those patriarchs had done.
Their whole history is a succession of apostasies, chastisements, humiliations, and merciful restorations to divine favour. Even in the periods of their history when they did not apostatise or worship other gods openly, they were charged with drawing near to God with their mouth and honouring Him with their lips, but having removed their hearts far from Him (Is 29:13). The grand error in their worship, however, consisted in mistaking the means for the end. They imagined that, when they had observed the ordinance – which was intended merely as an instrument to communicate faith or strengthen it – they had done all. Yet in no way were they edified by the act that God required of them.
The rite of circumcision was intended to be a token between God and Abraham and his family. Abraham had believed from the mouth of God that a second Adam – a second covenant head, a second representative – would be raised up of his posterity, and through Him he should receive pardon, reconciliation and everlasting righteousness. In the faith and hope of these high privileges, he gave up all connection with his first ancestor Adam and rejoiced to consider himself a member, by adoption, of a new and better family. God then, as a token to Abraham that his faith and hope were well founded, instituted the ordinance of circumcision, that he might more firmly know that he had been cut off from the family of the old Adam and had been introduced into the family of the new Adam.
1Taken, with editing, from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Stewart (1783-1852) was minister of Broughshane, near Ballymena, in Northern Ireland.
And God required circumcision in Abraham, his family and all his posterity as a token that they had renounced the family of the fallen, sinful Adam and had entered into the family of Him who was holy, harmless and undefiled. In all that was important in it, the ordinance of circumcision was therefore strictly spiritual. Take away what was spiritual and typical from it, and there remained nothing but a painful, useless and unmeaning rite.
In every period of their history, however – but especially in the time of the Lord and His apostles – the mass of the Israelites were blind to its spiritual significance. Yet with extraordinary senselessness and stupidity, they insisted upon its necessity and importance. The ordinance was typical. It was a token, on God’s part, that the new and better covenant Head would come; and on the believer’s part, that he and his would continue to expect His coming and rely upon it.
But the covenant Head had now come, and the family was organised. While all that was spiritual in circumcision continued in full force, the material part was superseded and abrogated for ever. The believers at Colosse were generally Gentile converts, who of course had not received outward circumcision in infancy, but Paul tells them in this portion of his Epistle that they had now received it spiritually, or inwardly, in believing on Christ: “In whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ”. That is, when they believed on Christ and He was formed in them the hope of glory, they were cut off from the guilt, the punishment and the power of the body of the sins of the flesh and were “quickened together with Him” (v 13) – the deadly weight of their trespasses being wholly removed.
In verse 12, the believing Colossians are informed that they had been buried with Christ in baptism. From this expression, Baptists have inferred that this ceremony was performed by immersion in apostolic times. There is, however, no analogy between the mode of Christ’s burial and resurrection and the act of dipping in the Baptist’s baptism. Christ was not put into the earth in burial, as the body is immersed into the water in baptism; nor in resurrection did He emerge from the grave, as the baptized arise above the surface of the water. His body was conveyed horizontally into an excavation in rock, and after resurrection He returned in the same way, so that there could be no allusion in this passage to the similarity of the outward form of baptism to the form of his burial and resurrection. In fact, Paul is contending for the comparative insignificance of outward forms, and the great importance of spiritual experiences.
It is therefore obvious that, by being buried with Christ in baptism, Paul means that baptism declares that believers are made one with Christ; that
when He died and was buried, they – that is, their life and hope – were dead and buried (2 Cor 5:14), that when He arose, their life and hope arose with Him; that because death could not hold Him, it will not be able to hold them (Ps 23:4), and that because He lives, they shall live also. The Colossian Christians are told that they have received spiritual circumcision “in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”.
They are further informed that it was by baptism into Christ’s death that they had put off the body of those sins. They had put them upon Christ, who came into this world to bear them in His own body, and under them He died and entered into the grave. But as death could not hold Him – as He had finished the transgression and made an end of sins (Dan 9:24) – it was not possible that the Holy One of God could see corruption (Acts 2:27); and when He arose, they arose with Him. The essential spiritual significance of circumcision and of baptism are therefore identified; in other words, baptism is the New Testament circumcision.
If so, not only are the infant children of believing parents fit and proper subjects for baptism, but it is sinful and unchristian to forbid them being baptized. Circumcision was so strongly enforced under the Old Testament dispensation, that the uncircumcised male child was declared cut off from his people (Gen 17:14). Let men then beware lest they be found obstructing the grace of God and usurping His high prerogatives. However, the importance of baptism – like the ordinance of circumcision, which it has succeeded – is its spiritual significance. Let all the baptized then examine themselves carefully, and let parents study the obligations they have come under at the baptism of their children and attend to these obligations.