Genesis 17:1-27: A Sign of the Covenant

Genesis 17:1-27: A Sign of the Covenant

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 17:1-27, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” 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.” 15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”… 22 When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. 23 Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26 That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. 27 And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. 

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we pray according to Isaiah 55 that as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so would your word be this morning—that it would not return to you empty but would accomplish that which you purpose and succeed in the thing for which you send it. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 

One of the nice things about expository preaching—or preaching passage-by-passage through books of the Bible—is that we get to talk about a lot of topics that we might not otherwise talk about. And that’s certainly the case for the topic before us this morning—which, as you may have picked up on from the Scripture reading, is the topic of circumcision. If I were just selecting whatever topics I thought were especially important for us to talk about each Sunday, I’m not sure I’d ever get around to selecting circumcision. Like, “Hey guys, I just really felt led to talk about circumcision today. God really just laid this topic on my heart.” Probably not going to happen, right? 

And that would be very unfortunate, because, as we’ll see, circumcision is actually a very relevant topic with immense significance for our lives. You know, maybe as Genesis 17 was being read a few moments ago, some of you were thinking to yourself, “What is he going to do with this passage?” Well, don’t you worry, because there’s quite a bit about ancient Hebrew circumcision that’s incredibly relevant for us and our relationship with God. Plus, as a bonus, I’m going to give those of you who are parents the opportunity to answer some great questions from your kids about human anatomy over lunch today. So, you’re welcome for that. But, again, that’s just a bonus.  

Now, as we’ll see, the main idea of this passage is that God establishes circumcision as the sign of his covenant with Abraham. By the way, a covenant is simply a sacred agreement between two parties. So, again, God establishes circumcision as the sign of his covenant with Abraham.

Before we do a deep dive into circumcision, though, I’d like to observe a few things from the very beginning of this passage. In Genesis 17:1-2, we read that 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Notice first the way God identifies himself to Abram. He says, “I am God Almighty.” That’s the English translation of the original Hebrew phrase “El-Shaddai”—a name of God that’s used in numerous places throughout the Old Testament. And this is actually the very first time the name El-Shaddai is used in the Bible. El is a very general term that simply refers to God, while Shaddai emphasizes the idea of power. So, when you put them together, you get “God the All-Powerful One” or “God the Mighty One” or, as we see here, “God Almighty.”

It’s as though God’s reminding Abram, who, if you remember, was waiting for God to fulfill his promises and likely being tempted to doubt those promises, that God’s more than able to keep the promises he’s made. He’s powerful enough to enable Abram’s wife Sarai to conceive even though she’s 89 years old at this point and thereby give Abram descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, as God said he would back in chapter 15. One commentator describes God’s message to Abram in this way. It’s as if God’s saying, “I’m able to fulfill the awesome hopes that I’ve set before you of a people and a land. There’s no need to let go of the promise because of your old age. There’s no need to succumb to passive desperation. There’s no need to scale down the promise to match your puny thoughts—no need to resort to fleshly expedience—no need of trying to fulfill the promise in any second-rate way. Everything—all your life, all your future—lies in this: I am God Almighty!”

Similarly, how critical it is for us to believe in an almighty God in the midst of whatever challenges we face in our lives. In the midst of financial challenges, workplace difficulties, marital conflict, struggles with addiction, parenting challenges, anxiety about the future, and any other sufferings or hardships we face, will we believe that the God we serve is indeed God Almighty? Maybe God needs to correct your small view of him just as he does with Abram here in this passage. 

Then, after identifying himself as El-Shaddai, God tells Abram to “walk before me, and be blameless.” In other words, Abram’s faith needs to be an obedient faith—a genuine faith that’s manifested in obedience. Then, after Abram falls on his face in reverence, God reaffirms his covenant with Abram and changes his name from Abram to Abraham. Look at verses 3-6: 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

Now, you have to understand that, in the ancient Near Eastern world, a person’s name was incredibly significant and considered to be bound up with the essence of who that person was. So, by changing Abram’s name to Abraham, God was communicating in a very powerful way what Abram would become. His original name Abram means “exalted father” and probably referred not to Abram himself but rather to Abram’s father, Terah. So Abram was understood to be not someone who was an exalted father but someone who had an exalted father. It kind of sounds little conceited, when you think about it, for Terah give his son that name, but I guess everyone else in the family just went along with it. By the way, I wouldn’t recommend that any future fathers here this morning name your children “exalted father.” It might not go over as well with your wife as you might be imagining. 

However, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” And this time, the word “father” does refer to Abraham. He would become the father of a multitude of people—and even, as God says in verse 5, of a “multitude of nations.” So, how’s that for a reminder of God’s promise? Every time Abraham’s called by his new name, he can be reminded all over again of what God’s promised him. And, of course, this promise would ultimately be fulfilled not just biologically but also spiritually. The New Testament teaches us in Galatians 3:29 that all those who put their trust in Jesus to save them from their sins are spiritual offspring of Abraham. So, you know that great multitude of people from every nation in the book of Revelation that are gathered around the throne of Jesus and worshipping him? That’s the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. As his new name declares, he’ll indeed be the father of a multitude of people. 

And that brings us to the moment we’ve all been waiting for—an in-depth look at circumcision in all of its richness and relevance. Not only does God give Abraham a new name as a reminder of the covenant he’s made with him, he also establishes circumcision as a sign of this covenant. Verses 9-14: 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.” 

So, notice, that this sign is something not only for Abraham but also for all of his descendants. It would be repeated as a requirement in the Law of Moses and practiced relatively faithfully throughout Israel’s subsequent generations. And you might be wondering, why would God command something like this? Like, there are lot of physical alterations God could have commanded instead as a sign of his covenant. So, why not a small tattoo on the shoulder or clipping off the tip of an earlobe or something like that? Does the sign of the covenant really have to involve making cuts on certain things south of the border? 

Well, there’s actually a reason why God establishes circumcision specifically as a sign of the covenant. In fact, there are two reasons. First of all, cutting away the foreskin of the male reproductive organ is intended to signify the need all of us have for the sin within our hearts to be cut away. And, according to the Bible, the sin within our hearts is passed down from one generation to the next. Each generation inherits a sinful nature from the previous generation. So, that’s why the cut takes place on the organ responsible for producing subsequent generations. Not only Abraham but also all of the generations that would come from him needed to have sin cut away from their hearts. So that’s one reason why the cut couldn’t be made on the earlobe or something like that. 

In addition, the nature of circumcision is also intended to focus attention on the offspring of Abraham through whom, God had promised, blessing would come to the entire world. If you remember back in Genesis 12:3, God had told Abraham that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” And that blessing would ultimately come through one descendant of Abraham in particular—the Lord Jesus Christ. According to Galatians 3:16, Jesus is the quintessential offspring of Abraham. So, the sign of the covenant is applied where it’s applied on the body in order to direct our attention not to Abraham himself but to his offspring, Jesus—the One who would eventually come from Abraham and through Whom the blessings of God’s covenant with Abraham would flow to the whole world. See, I told you, isn’t expository teaching great? This is incredible!

So, just as God had established the rainbow as what he called the “sign” of his covenant with Noah in Genesis 9 and just as he’d later establish the Sabbath as what he’d call the “sign” of his covenant with the Israelites in Exodus 31, God here establishes circumcision as the “sign” of his covenant with Abraham. So, I guess God just likes signs. And, when you think about the nature of a sign, it’s important to distinguish between the sign itself and the reality that the sign symbolizes. For example, think about the sign of a wedding ring. A wedding ring itself isn’t marriage, nor does wearing a wedding ring make someone married. Instead, a wedding ring is simply a sign of marriage. And the ring would be an empty and meaningless sign if the person wearing it wasn’t married. 

Similarly, as we see in the Bible, the sign of circumcision was empty and meaningless if it wasn’t accompanied by something internal. In order for external circumcision to have any meaning or value, it had to be accompanied by internal circumcision. That’s why we find several commands in the Old Testament for the Israelites to “circumcise” their hearts. In Deuteronomy 10:16, for example, God tells the Israelites, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” Also, in Jeremiah 4:4, he says to a particularly rebellious generation of Israelites, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.” So, circumcision needed to be not only external but also internal. 

And that’s a principle that applies not only to the Israelites but also to us. There has to be a good balance, in the Christian life, between the external and the internal. Asking whether the external or internal is more important is kind of like asking which of your two legs is more important in order to walk. You need both of them! 

Some of you—perhaps those who have been Christian longer—are really good at external habits of religious devotion. You’ve gotten to the point where it’s relatively natural for you to do certain things. Like, you don’t have to decide each Sunday whether to attend church or not, right? Unless you’re sick or traveling or something like that, you’re here. You’ve probably also established the habit of having a daily devotional time, when you read the Bible and focus your attention on prayer. And perhaps you’ve also established the habit of giving a set amount of money at some regular interval. These are all great habits to have. 

But, sometimes, you need to take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I just going through the motions here?” Maybe all of these things used to be genuine expressions of love for God, but have they become, to any degree, something less than that? Have they gradually degenerated into empty religious observances? Don’t let yourself put your Christian life on autopilot.

Yet, there’s also a ditch on the other side of the road as well. There are probably others here this morning—perhaps those who are younger in the faith—who are experiencing wonderful things internally. You’re so excited about Jesus. You marvel at his grace every single day, and you just can’t believe how amazing he is. He’s so amazing that you want to tell everyone you meet about him and what he’s done for you. Praise God for that! Start praying right now that you’d never lose that sense of awe and amazement at the gospel. 

But, also, be aware that your internal love for the Lord and joy in what he’s done for you needs to show up in your life in practical ways. You need to be involved in church consistently and hopefully also in a Community Group. You need to start setting aside a certain portion of your day—usually the same time each day—to study the Bible and pray. You should also be practicing good financial stewardship on a regular basis and honoring God with your wealth. You should be regularly finding ways to serve the people around you—both here at the church and out in the community through acts of mercy like the Finleyville Food Pantry that we’re getting people together to help with right now. And you should be orienting your entire life around the missionary calling God’s given us of reaching people with the gospel. 

These are all things that those of us who are Christians are called to do. By the way, I’ve placed a stack of oversized bookmarks on the back Resource Table that we had printed up that identify “10 Habits of a Healthy Christian”—which include the habits I’ve just mentioned and a few other habits as well. You’re welcome to pick one up on your way out this morning. Because the Bible’s very clear in James 2:17 that faith without works is dead. The internal without the external is meaningless. Similarly, in Ephesians 2:8-10, Paul explains that, even though we’re not saved by good works, we are saved for good works. It’s just another way of saying that internal faith needs to manifest itself in external obedience. 

So, ask yourself, which category are you closer to? Are you more in danger of just going through the motions of the Christian life, or are you more in danger of neglecting the acts of obedience that God calls us to practice? And we see the need for this balance between the internal and external even back in the Old Testament as God established external circumcision as a sign of the covenant but also called his people to an internal circumcision—a circumcision of the heart. 

Yet, strictly speaking, that circumcision of the heart was never truly possible in the Old Testament. God told the Israelites to circumcise their hearts, but, ultimately, they couldn’t. They weren’t capable of bringing about within themselves the kind of heart change that was necessary in order to consistently walk in closeness to God. That’s why God told them that, eventually, he himself would have to circumcise their hearts for them. As he predicts through Moses in Deuteronomy 30:6, speaking about what God will do after the Israelites have rebelled: “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” So, instead of telling them to circumcise their hearts, God says he’s going to circumcise their hearts.

God also declares in Jeremiah 31:31-33, 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. He also tells his people in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

Then, moving forward to the New Testament and returning specifically to the language of circumcision, Paul explains to us in Romans 2:28-29, 28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. So, true circumcision is not only “a matter of the heart” but also happens…how? “By the Spirit,” Paul says. Only the Holy Spirit is able to circumcise our hearts. It’s a supernatural work that he has to do. 

And that’s the only kind of circumcision that matters now. Physical circumcision was only a temporary sign for Abraham and his biological descendants in the Old Testament that was intended to point forward in time to something greater. And that greater reality is the inward circumcision we receive by Jesus and through the Holy Spirit. That’s why Paul writes in Colossians 2:11, speaking of Jesus, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” So, again, physical circumcision was only a temporary sign that pointed forward in time to what Jesus would accomplish within our hearts. Jesus does for us what we could never do for ourselves. 

Moving ahead a couple of verses in Colossians 2, Paul explains it in more detail. He writes, in verses 13-14, 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 

Now, there’s a lot in these verses, but just notice how we’re rescued from what Paul calls our “uncircumcision”—that is, from our sinful nature. And that sinful nature, by the way, doesn’t stay on the inside but leads us to commit what Paul refers to as “trespasses”—or sins against God—for which we need to be “forgiven.” That’s what Paul says. So we actually have to problems: a sinful heart that needs to be changed and, growing out of that sinful heart, a sinful lifestyle for which we need God’s forgiveness. Paul says it’s as if we owed a massive debt to God’s justice. Basically, our sins deserved hell. 

But what did Jesus do to rescue us? Paul says that Jesus took that “record of debt that stood against us” and “nail[ed] it to the cross.” The cross is the key to it all. Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, taking on himself the punishment we deserved. He paid the debt that we owed. He then resurrected from the dead so that he’s now able, through the Holy Spirit, to change our sinful hearts and make us into new people. That’s the circumcision we so desperately need—a spiritual circumcision in which Jesus changes us from the inside out. 

So understand that being saved from your sin and being confident about spending eternity with God in heaven isn’t about external religious observances but about an internal change of your heart. Has your heart been changed? As Paul writes in Galatians 6:15, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” Have you experienced an inward change that’s so radical that you can accurately be called “a new creation”? 

You see, friends, trying to make various changes in our lives apart from Jesus is a futile endeavor. Our sinful nature just goes too deep. It’s beyond our ability to remedy. We might be able to make a few cosmetic changes on the surface here and there, but we can’t change our hearts. The only kinds of changes we can make are those that basically amount to trying to put a Band-Aid on cancer. The sin in your heart is like cancer, and a Band-Aid won’t fix it. You need Jesus to change your heart. You don’t just need a fresh start at life or a second chance to prove yourself or a new code of personal ethics or a new set of friends. And you don’t just need to leave behind a few bad habits and embrace a few good habits. You need your uncircumcised heart to be circumcised. You need your rebellious nature that represents the very core of who you are to be changed. And that change is only possible through Jesus. Have you experienced that change? 

Just to give you a few examples of what that change looks like—some signs of a changed heart—I’d say, first of all, it’s manifested in a genuine love for God. The reason you do what you do isn’t because you’re trying to impress God or earn a right standing with God but because you love him and desire to bring joy to his heart. To put it in the simplest of terms, making God happy makes you happy. Also, another sign of a changed heart is a desire for God. You’re no longer treating God like a cosmic vending machine that you value only because of the earthly blessings you think he’ll dispense to you. Instead, your desire is for God himself. Although you might appreciate and enjoy his earthly blessings, your interest reaches beyond the gifts to the Giver of those gifts. You long for more of God. As Asaph says to God in Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

A third sign of a changed heart is sensitivity to sin in your life. You regularly discover pockets of sin in your life and are genuinely grieved over that sin because you know that it displeases God and are therefore led to turn away from that sin and start honoring God in that area of your life. As 1 John 1:8-10 tells us, 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. I guess you could say it this way: a heart that’s been changed with respect to God is also a heart that’s been changed with respect to sin. Instead of delighting in sin, it mourns over sin. 

Fourth, if your heart’s been changed, there should also be a love in your heart for fellow Christians. If you think you’re too good for other Christians who are genuinely trying to live for God or if you find being around them to be distasteful or undesirable, that may very well be an indication of an uncircumcised heart. We read in 1 John 2:9-10, 9 Whoever says he is in the light [that he’s a Christian] and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. We then read in verse 19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” If you have a changed heart, the general assumption of the Bible is that you’ll desire to have fellowship and meaningful involvement in a local church. If you don’t have a least some desire that, I’m not saying conclusively that you’re not a Christian, but I am saying that you should definitely examine your heart. 

Then, finally, a fifth sign of a changed heart is a passion to see God glorified in the world. And I’m specifically talking about seeing him glorified as more people come to know him. The nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon put it very bluntly when he wrote, “Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself, be sure of that!” If your heart’s been changed, you’ll desire that others experience what you’ve experienced and, even beyond that, that God receive more of the worship and glory that he so deserves. 

So let me encourage you with the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:5, where he tells his readers, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” Do you show signs of a circumcised heart—a heart that’s been changed by Jesus?