Pastor John,
During the meeting this morning you quoted Romans 5:29, “But one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.” That reminded me of what we read this past week for our Old Testament assignment, and I have a question about it.
In Joshua chapter 5, God commanded Joshua to circumcise the children of Israel for a second time.
Joshua 5:4-5 says, And this is the reason that Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt, the males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness along the way after they came out from Egypt,
5.and all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out from Egypt had not been circumcised.
There must have been a good reason why Moses did not have them circumcised on the eighth day while in the Wilderness, the Bible doesn’t tell us. But it made me wonder if there could be a connection with what you said previously on one of the Old Testament CDs.*
You said that Moses was not able to bring the people into the Promised Land, which was a symbol of the Law not being able to save us. Moses had to turn it all over to Joshua, and then Joshua took God’s people in.
Thinking along those lines, with Moses representing the Law and physical circumcision could that second circumcision by Joshua represent the spiritual circumcision of the heart by Jesus when we receive the Spirit?
Thank you!
Amy French
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Excellent observation, Amy! Yes, that second circumcision represents the one that Jesus gives.
I have always assumed that Israel could not circumcise their children in the wilderness because they never knew when the cloud would move. It is interesting to think on what that uncertainty represented, spiritually, before the Spirit came in Acts 2.
Pastor John
* https://www.goingtojesus.com/gtj_otcourse-1010.html