Circumcision, the sign of the Covenant:

Twenty four years after the initial promise,  thirteen years after Ishmael was born and when Abram was ninety nine,  the Lord appeared to him once again. He told him “walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you.”  It renewed the promise to make Abram a great nation, and  also “I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”  As a sign of the covenant every male in Abraham's household was to be circumcised in “the flesh of your foreskins.” Anyone not circumcised was to be “cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (Genesis 17).

About walking blameless, the Law was not yet given, and as with Noah, it was about being “perfect in his generation” (see 13 February).  We, the people of God,  are to stand out from the crowd in terms of our conduct.  The Lord gave the land forever,  He wouldn't change His mind.  There'd  be two exiles for disobedience however. The first was  seventy years (Jeremiah 29:10),  the second nearly two thousand. At the end of that time the nation would be (re) born in a day (Isaiah 66:8).  The Jew is one of the many proofs of the Bible! Israel, of course, is far from perfect,  as we all are.

God changed Abram's name to Abraham, meaning father of a multitude,  Sari became Sarah, meaning princess. He told Abraham she would bear him a son, and be the mother of nations. Abraham laughed, after all he would be a hundred and Sarah ninety! He said “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” But the Lord said “My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.”  Isaac means laughter.

Every male in Abraham's household was circumcised that day. This practice would become very controversial under the New Covenant. At the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15, the apostles decided that circumcision was not to be required of non Jewish Christians.  But the decision was made only after “no small dispute.”  In conformity to the command to walk before God blameless,  Paul tells “circumcision is of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter” (Romans 12:29). The Christian is  “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,  buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” (Colossians  2:11, 12).

Circumcision and Baptism then are to be outward signs of the  inward realty of  a changed heart.  Putting off the body of sin is about repentance, turning from our old way of life. Buried in baptism is about putting to death the sinful nature. Coming up out of the waters of baptism is about putting on the new nature, about living out of the new heart the Lord gives the believer (Ezekiel 11:19).  

Father, we too are to walk before You blameless as the only reasonable response to Your tender mercies  (Romans 12:2 NJKV). Concerning the new life, growth is it only sign. Too many seek to use salvation as a ticket to sin, God forbid that that should be me.  As in Ezekiel give me a heart to obey, and I will give You the Glory my Lord and my God.