The issue with circumcision in those passages hasn't anything to do with a "covenant sign," or admission to a covenant community. The problem with the Judaizers was that they wanted to bring the Gentile and Jewish Christians alike back into subservience to all the Law of Moses. They were rejecting the typological nature of the Mosaic administration, and making full law-observance a requirement for staying in the grace of God.

To them, circumcision was more than a sign of being "in" or "out" of the covenant. It was a symbol of one's submission to the whole Law. Indeed, there was a time, prior to Christ's resurrection, when being "in" the covenant meant exactly that: the person's promise to keep the whole Law. "Do this and live." A yoke, impossible for our fathers or us to bear (Acts 15:10).

So in that situation it wasn't merely a matter of "baptism replacing circumcision," though (we say) it certainly had done that. We could say: "baptism (what it symbolizes) replaced the whole Mosaic administration, including circumcision." This was not something that the Judaizers were willing to accept. They did not think Moses' Law was something that could ever be superseded. One still needed (in that view) to keep the Law, become Jewish in other words, and further he could be a "Messianic" Jew by adopting Jesus as the Messiah (and being baptized, of course).

That's a short answer. Maybe it will get you started.

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
--Robert Burns, 1786 (modernized) ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions? --