The Mark of the Covenant

Genesis 21:4 ESV

4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

In our sermon for today, what we are going to be speaking of is separation from the world and the mark that accompanies and signifies to yourself and to others that that separation has taken place.

In different cultures and societies all across the world in all realms of life, there is an order, a hierarchy of established order. In other words, in every realm of every society, there is a pyramid-like order of those in the particular realms of a society. There are some who are ranked at the bottom of the pyramid, then there is a class above those who are ranked at the bottom, and then a class above those who are ranked above those at the bottom and so on, until you reach the top of the pyramid.

In fact, in many places of employment, this classification of the different levels of hierarchy are identified by a mark of some sort. For example, on construction sites or in factories, a lot of times, the different levels of hierarchy are made known by the color of the hard hat that individuals will wear. In not all cases, but in many cases, the general laborers, those on the lowest rung of the hierarchical construction pyramid will wear yellow hard hats. Then above them will be a different color hard hat, maybe a green, or a brown, or a blue, but typically, the man in charge, the supervisor, will wear a white hard hat. That lets everyone know that he is the one who they have to answer to.

I also remember when I was a teenager and worked in the produce department at Kroger, they too had a way of identifying the hierarchical retail order. A peon like me, one of the standard employees at the grocery store, would wear a really cheap, plastic, yellow, name badge. But department managers would wear a blue, not so cheap-looking plastic name badge, the store managers would wear a white name badge, and when corporate managers would come to visit the store, they would wear a silver name badge.

Well, in a similar way, God applies an outward mark, a sign that reveals to everyone, especially to themselves and to those in the community of believers that makes known that He has separated them, set them apart to be joined in the covenant community.

Today, in the New Covenant age, that sign, that outward mark is the sacrament of baptism. But, in the Old Covenant age, that outward mark was the sacrament of circumcision. It is the Old Covenant mark of circumcision that we are going to be primarily focusing on today, but we will conclude our message by seeing how this act was and is fulfilled and improvedby the sacrament of baptism.

Now, we call these signs “sacraments”, and for good reason too. A sacrament indicates the conveyance of something sacred. In other words, God communicates divine grace to those who partake in the sacraments. So, God takes very ordinary things that we can see like the Lord’s Supper and Christian baptism, and He mysteriously communicates gracious favor to the one who is partaking in them.

It's almost like the old saying of “putting a face to the name” or, “putting a face to the voice”. When you hear someone speak of someone else, you have a mental image of what that person looks like, or if you hear someone’s voice but do not see what they look like, you still have an idea in your head of what you think that person looks like based on what you hear or on what you’ve been told. But when you actually see that person face to face, you can say, “It’s nice to put a face to the name, or to the voice”.

Well, the elements that God uses in the sacraments don’t have any power in them whatsoever, it is God alone Who possesses the power and the grace and the communication of the grace. But God has graciously willed to, through His spiritual presence, communicate His gracious favor to believers whenever they partake in the sacraments. And as we physically see, taste, feel elements like bread or the cup and the juice in the cup, we visibly see the representation of what God is communicating to us invisibly.

Well, as was said, this same grace was communicated in Old Testament times to those who were circumcised, to those who administered the circumcision, and to those who were present for the circumcision of a child of the covenant.

We read where the sacrament of circumcision is first introduced in scripture earlier on here in the book of Genesis, back in chapter seventeen, and verses nine through fourteen, where we read:

Genesis 17:9-14 ESV

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

The covenant that is spoken of here is in relation to the covenant of grace that God established with Abraham. And because it is a covenant of grace that means that it is God Who begins the covenant, Who sustains the covenant, and Who completes the covenant; it is truly a covenant of grace that is extended to whoever God is pleased to extend it to.

In this covenant, there is a mark given to signify that the one who receives the mark is either a partaker of the covenant or is at least a member of the covenant community.

Because Abraham himself belonged to the covenant community, it then followed that every male in his household was to receive the same mark that he himself received. Thus, God commands him to circumcise any sons that would be born to him and any male servants that he owned. And so, we see that receiving this mark of the covenant was not just an individual rite, but it applied to the entire household.

And notice too when the mark of circumcision is to be administered. It isn’t to be administered when a boy is old enough to make a decision to be circumcised or even when he is consciously able to understand what is happening, but rather, it takes place when he is eight days old.

But why eight days old? Why not when he is old enough to consciously decide for himself? Some may say, “well, because it would be very painful to have that performed at any other time!”, but as we see here, Abraham himself was to be circumcised, and he was ninety-nine years old… much older than eight days old! In fact, if someone was born a Gentile and later converted to the Jewish faith, he would then be circumcised. So, obviously it’s not a matter of avoiding the pain involved.

So, again, why at eight days old? Because, when a child is born with Jewish parents or with at least one Jewish parent, God expects and commands those parents to raise their children as Jews, not as potential Jews.

Of course, their circumcision is not what will save that child, it is the grace of God that will save that child. In addition, not everyone who was circumcised would be saved, it is still the child’s responsibility to profess faith and trust in God for himself when he gets older, but that mark that he receives indicates that God has chosen that child to be brought up in the covenant community.

And I know that we haven’t really looked at our reading for today, we’ve focused on what surrounds our reading and why it was accomplished, but when we do look at our reading, we see that Abraham had performed on his son, Isaac, exactly as he was commanded, as we read:

Genesis 21:4 ESV

4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Isaac was the son of promise and that Abraham performed the circumcision of Isaac shows that God would continue the covenant that He had made with Abraham, and that He would do so, through Isaac.

The mark of the covenant, the sacrament of circumcision given by the command of God and specifically applied to Isaac was visible proof to Abraham and to Isaac himself that the covenant that God had established and entered into with Abraham back in Genesis, chapter sixteen would continue beyond Abraham and extend further through Isaac.

The covenant given to Abraham in Genesis, chapter fifteen revealed that it was a covenant of grace, that it was established, sustained, and accomplished by God. Receiving the mark of circumcision indicated that you were chosen by God to live amongst the covenant community. And Isaac, the son of promise, receiving circumcision, the mark of the covenant, indicated that it is a lasting covenant; that it is a covenant that is extended to the covenant community until the end of the age.

And so, that causes us then to ask, then why do we not still today sacramentally circumcise? Of course, circumcision is often performed on Christian males and usually when they are infants, but we don’t do this because we recognize it as the mark of the covenant of grace.

But why not? Because today, there is a new and better mark, a new and better sign. That sign is the sacrament of Christian baptism.

Just as circumcision was the mark that Jews would receive in the Old Covenant which indicated that they were set apart by God and belonged to covenant community, so now does the sign and mark of Christian baptism indicate that those who are baptized are set apart by God and belong to the new covenant community, which is a continuation and fulfillment of the old covenant community.

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking, “Pastor Nick, are you trying to say that everyone who is baptized is saved?!” or “Are you trying to say that being baptized is what saves a person?!”. I’m definitely not saying either one of those things!

We know that there were so many in Israel, those who had received the mark of the covenant at eight days old just as God had commanded who nonetheless proved themselves to be apostate, unsaved people, and that is because God did not save everyone who was circumcised, just like He does not save everyone who is baptized.

So again, if He’s not going to save them, why does He command them to be circumcised? Or, in the case of us today, especially we in the Presbyterian tradition who practice infant or, paedobaptism, if God is not going to save someone who is baptized as an infant, then why does He command Christian parents to baptize their children?

Because in both instances, in the old covenant community, being circumcised meant that you lived in the covenant community, were claimed by God, and had the heightened responsibility to trust in God.

And that has not changed in the new covenant community, the only thing different is the sign itself: no longer do we sacramentally circumcise, but instead, we sacramentally baptize. And when Christian parents are faithful to baptize their children, it is a sign to the parents, to the child, and to the rest of the new covenant community that God has been pleased to claim this child and have he or she brought up amongst the society of the faithful.

This command to circumcise was a command that promoted the glory of God, and which was certainly for the good of the one who was being circumcised, whether that was a man who became a Jew later in life or a child who was circumcised at eight days old.

And as we said, today, in the New Covenant Age that we live in, the sacrament of baptism has replaced and perfected the sacrament of circumcision, yet so many fail to carry out the greater sacrament either on themselves or on their children, while the sacrament of circumcision was universally carried out by virtually every Jew.

Beloved, as we conclude our sermon for today, we see that as God had been faithful to continue His covenant with Abraham through Isaac and that He made that known by commanding Isaac to be circumcised, so may we today, who have been graciously included in the fulfillment of that same covenant community show that we are not ashamed to have been claimed and brought into the gracious covenant of God!

Amen?