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Martin
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Username: Martin

Post Number: 82
Registered: 11-2008
Posted on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 1:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi all,

I am going through a text I found in the "Truth or Fables" website, that deals with the research of Dr. Bacchiocchi, the Sabbath and SDA theology. The link to the file is this:

http://www.truthorfables.com/12-DOCTORS%20BACCHIOCCHI%20&%20MACCARTY%20.pdf

Well, in chapter 3 it talks about circumcision and the Sabbath being inseparably bound together, that it isn't possible to separate one from the other and that both Jews and Gentiles were not allowed to keep the Sabbath without first being circumcised.

This is a relatively new concept for me, since it's something I never studied before... And I can see the huge significance it could have for Christians, especially since in the Council of Jerusalem it was decided not to impose circumcision on the Gentile Christians (Acts 15): If they (we) were not to be circumcised, then they (we) should not keep those commandments in the same way as the Jews had to do.

However, in one point they give the verse Leviticus 24:22 to explain the point that "The Gentiles could not keep the Law of Moses until they had become circumcised"... I went to read that text in the Bible and found the following:


quote:

22 You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.




Sincerely, not even reading the whole chapter I can see that the verse refers to circumcision. That part talks about a person who was stoned due to blasphemy... I understand the verse refers to God ordering not to make distinctions between Jews and Gentiles when it came to punishment.

Please, could anyone give me some directions or explanations about the relationship between the Law and the circumcision?

I always read that part about the circumcision in the Early Church and I could see it was important, at least for them... But if what the text explains is true, then the implications are much deeper than I thought.
Pegg
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Username: Pegg

Post Number: 211
Registered: 2-2006
Posted on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 2:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Martin -

Good question!

I have always heard (this would be from Formers) that circumcision was like the gateway to everything else in the Law. For this reason "circumcision" is used by the writers of the NT like a sort of encompassing code word for the whole Law.

I Would Dearly Love To See This Demonstrated.

Pegg:-):-)
Indy4now
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Username: Indy4now

Post Number: 723
Registered: 2-2008


Posted on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 5:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Martin~

When God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision for the covenant between God and Abraham's family, it was circumcision. In Gen. 17:10-27, God tells Abraham that every male, including a servant or a servant bought with money who is not your descendant is to be circumcised. Any male who was uncircumcised was cut off from his people because he has broken God's covenant sign.

This is why God came down to kill Moses' sons. They had not been circumcised and God was going to cut them off from their people (Ex.4:24-26). I'd have to find the exact text, but God does command that everyone who is to celebrate Passover has to be circumcised. So in order for anyone to adhere to the Torah, they had to first be circumcised so that they would be considered descendants of Abraham. If you're not a descendant of Abraham, you are not in covenant with God. This is why it was such a big deal.

So imagine Paul saying that "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love." (Gal5:6 NASB)Not having your child circumcised to a Jew meant to be cut off from their people... which meant not observing the feasts (daily, monthly or yearly) or the rest of the law. This is why circumcision and the law are inseparable.

hope this helps... someone else may be able to make this clearer for you!

vivian
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 10239
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 9:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Good answer, Vivian! And yes, this is true. Circumcision was the "gateway" into the entire Torah observance. Without circumcision, the law was not yours. It's requirements did not apply.

The whole of Roman 4 explains that faith counted as righteousness is NOT linked to the law. Abraham was counted righteous BEFORE he was circumcised. The same chapter clearly identifies the difference between "the circumcision" and "the uncircumcized". Yet Paul says BOTH are recipients of righteousness on account of faith.

So, yes--circumcision was the entrance sign into the old covenant--it was what qualified a person to live as a Jew and to keep the Jewish law. Sabbath always came under the overarching sign of circumcicsion. Be circumcised, keep the Sabbath. Be uncircumcised, you may not keep the Sabbath.

Yet righteousness was completely unrelated to being circumcised. It was all about being Jewish (or a member of a Jewish household, like a servant/slave).

Colleen
8thday
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Username: 8thday

Post Number: 1130
Registered: 11-2007


Posted on Monday, August 17, 2009 - 8:26 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

New Covenant application -
If your heart is not circumcised by the Holy Spirit, you cannot have the eternal rest in Christ. OC - symbolic shadow - NC - spiritual reality.
Hec
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Username: Hec

Post Number: 434
Registered: 3-2009
Posted on Monday, August 17, 2009 - 8:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Are there any Bible passages that support that unless one is circumcised one cannot keep the law, or it's just based on arguments?

Hec
Indy4now
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Username: Indy4now

Post Number: 726
Registered: 2-2008


Posted on Monday, August 17, 2009 - 9:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Hec-

Here is the verse I was trying to think of earlier


quote:

NASB Exo 12:48 "But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.




This verse is also saying that if a male was uncircumcised... he was not "native" to the land. I would think that only "natives" would be allowed to practice the law. It would be interesting to know what a Jew who lives today thinks of a person trying to keep the law and is uncircumcised.

vivian
Martin
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Username: Martin

Post Number: 83
Registered: 11-2008
Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 3:53 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thank you very much for all your answers!

This is an interesting topic, that I'm still going through... But I have to say that this has shed new light over other things.

For example, now I find new layers of meaning to what the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees said in Acts 15:5

quote:

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses."



It seems to me now that the circumcision and the keeping of the law they're talking about are not separate things, but that they knew that one thing must go first in order to require the other, if they wanted to do things according to what God had revealed to the Jews.

If they just wanted new Christians to keep the principles of the Torah, then they actually wouldn't need the circumcision... They just could have made commandments out of it. But they knew that circumcision came first, that it was the first sign that made the Jews separate from all the others, and that the Torah was never given to the Gentiles initially. So, according to their way of thinking, those new Gentile Christians had to be made Jews first in order to require them to keep the Torah.

So, in other words, those who were not participants in the Old Covenant did not have the right and obligation to live under the Torah, no?

It is interesting, then, to see in the same chapter the reaction of the Apostles... Especially Peter:

quote:

"Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."



Gentiles were completely out of the Old Covenant unless they became Jews... Hence they need to be circumcised first, and then start keeping the Law. Nevertheless, under the New Covenant God accepted those uncircumcised Gentiles in the same way the He accepted the circumcised Jews and showed it by giving them the Holy Spirit. And the apostles saw no reason to require them to keep the law in the same way as the Jews did. Peter clearly saw that it was not by keeping the law that people would be saved, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the same way, Paul was very clear when he talked with Peter, as he tells in Galatians 2:14

quote:

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?



According to the law of Moses, Peter shouldn't have been there, sitting and eating with the uncircumcised Gentiles. That would have been something unthinkable for a Jew, no? Nevertheless, he did it in Antioch until those other Jews arrived from James.

If, as a Jew under the New Covenant, Peter saw there was no problem to do something that would have been considered to be unthinkable... How could they, then, require things to people who were not under the obligation to do them?

That's probably why they wanted the Christian Gentiles to become Jews first by being circumcised, so they could be required to do them.

The main issue was that under the New Covenant the framework had changed. Those believers of the party of the Pharisees were, supposedly, living under the New Covenant but still holding to the Old.
Indy4now
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Post Number: 729
Registered: 2-2008


Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 4:55 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

great post Martin!
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 10246
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 7:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yes, Martin, that's it!
Colleen
Pegg
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Username: Pegg

Post Number: 217
Registered: 2-2006
Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 8:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Terrific Martin!

The dialog in Acts 15 very much spoke to me on this issue as well. More later if I have time.

Pegg:-):-)
Bobj
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Username: Bobj

Post Number: 433
Registered: 1-2006


Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 6:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Martin

Good thread! I wanted to share something I posted on another forum that was also discussing the old covenant law in the context of sabbath-keeping:

For more than 150 years now some preachers have said that Sunday is the mark of the beast and those who break the old covenant Sabbath will be lost. Many would dismiss this as harmless—even if it is not Biblical. But Paul does not regard the matter of imposing old covenant commands on new believers lightly.

Referring to the old covenant, Paul says “if I rebuild what has been torn down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.” Gal 2:18. We are here warned not to rebuild the old covenant with its restrictions. So as Christians we believe that new believers are not bound by any old covenant commands unless they are also given as part of the new covenant.

Paul makes this quite clear in Galatians and in Romans 14. The Jews also understood that the Law of Moses would never apply to Gentiles, or to the church, as Deut 4:7-8, Ps 147:19-20, Mal 4:4 show.

Those who would teach these old covenant laws as obligations (as these preachers do when they link the seventh-day sabbath to salvation) are “putting God to the test” (Acts 15:10), something Jesus warned Satan about, too, using those very same words!

Bob

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