The New Circumcision

I heard a presentation yesterday that I just can't get out of my mind. It was by Joshua Garroway, a candidate for my school's faculty. He is still being considered, and his dissertation has not yet been published, so I don't know if I'm being improper in commenting on his presentation. After all, my blog may not be the most widely read on the Internet, but my posts still show up on Google. I guess I'll offer a few comments, with the disclaimer that what I am about to write is solely my own understanding of what he said.

His argument was that Paul considered baptism to be the new circumcision. On some level, I've heard this argument before, mainly in Christian debates about whether or not baptism is a requirement for salvation. As a matter of fact, I heard it many years ago in my undergraduate Bible study group. The cultish International Church of Christ was trying to make inroads into my university, and one of its teachings was that baptism is necessary for salvation. My evangelical Bible study group was trying to equip us to refute this doctrine, and one argument we were given went something like this: "Baptism is the new circumcision, and the old circumcision was unnecessary for Abraham's justification before God (see Romans 4), ergo baptism is not necessary to be saved." Tim Warner, who believes in baptism's salvific necessity, responds to this argument by denying that baptism is the new circumcision. See Tim Warner's Baptism & Circumcision.

So, on some level, I have heard Rabbi Garroway's argument before. The reason that his presentation was so riveting, however, was that it brought rabbinic references into the discussion, highlighted things in the New Testament that I had not previously considered, and caused me to ask a lot of questions (which I'm still doing).

Regarding rabbinic references, he referred to Talmudic passages about what counts as circumcision. Who is truly circumcised, according to the Talmud? Well, there is a Talmudic view that Jewish women are regarded as circumcised and thus as part of the covenant, even though they don't have a literal foreskin that has been removed. And the Talmud also addresses whether the circumcision of certain Gentiles counts before God. Some Gentile cultures (e.g., Egypt) practiced circumcision, and there were also Gentiles who were circumcised to remove parasites from their body. According to the Talmud, the circumcision of these Gentiles does not count before God, even though their foreskin has been removed. Garroway's overall argument was that Paul regarded Gentile Christians as circumcised members of God's covenant, despite the presence of their foreskins.

For the New Testament, there were times when Rabbi Garroway showed a New Testament reference on the projector, and I kept looking in my Bible to make sure that it really said what was on the screen. I have read the New Testament a number of times, yet I am amazed at how I can miss some very interesting details. For example, take a look at Romans 15:7-9: "Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was [lit. 'has become'] a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name." I never noticed the part about Christ being a minister of the circumcision. How does that detail relate to the overall message of Romans 15? For Rabbi Garroway, Christ circumcises the sinful flesh of the Gentiles, enabling them to become a part of God's covenant, in accordance with God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 17:4-7.

So what sorts of questions am I asking? In the Q and A session, I asked Rabbi Garroway if he thought that Paul considered circumcision/baptism a requirement for salvation, and I pointed to Roman 4's argument that Abraham was justified by faith long before his circumcision. He responded that he thought Paul indeed had such a belief about circumcision/baptism, and that he disagreed with the usual interpretation of Romans 4. For Rabbi Garroway, Paul was not presenting circumcision as optional or unnecessary, but as the seal of Abraham's faith. He further said that he discusses this topic in his dissertation, in which he looks at many syntactical issues in Romans 4.

I hope to read his dissertation so that I can glean fresh insights on this chapter. After all, the topic of Paul and circumcision has often led me to ask myself, "Was Paul really being faithful to the Jewish scriptures?" Sure, Paul does well to point out that Abraham was justified before his circumcision, but Genesis 17 is clear that those who are not circumcised are cut off from God's covenant with Israel. On some level, I could sympathize with Paul's opponents, who probably appealed to Genesis 17 to argue that Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to join God's covenant. But what if Paul actually took Genesis 17 into consideration and was faithful to the chapter's message that circumcision is an indispensable part of the covenant? For Paul, however, the new circumcision was baptism.

This brings me to another thought that entered my mind. Paul tries to present Christ as doing something new, and yet he grounds that something new in something old. For Paul, Christ inaugurated a new covenant (see I Corinthians 11:25), and yet Paul also tries to show that Jewish and Gentile believers are under God's covenant with Abraham. A student pointed out to Rabbi Garroway that the church fathers believed that Jews needed to be baptized, meaning that their circumcision was no longer valid after the coming of Christ. Rabbi Garroway responded that Paul believed the rules had changed once Christ came. True, and yet Paul also thinks that there is continuity with the Abrahamic covenant: justification is still by faith, and circumcision is still an indispensable part of the agreement. So Christ did not simply come and abolish the old. He did something new that was in some sense continuous with the old.

And that brings me to another question: Why did Christ come to die? Rabbi Garroway said that, for Paul, if Gentiles had to be circumcised to enter God's covenant, then Christ died in vain. But Gentiles in Old Testament times could enter God's covenant through circumcision. Exodus 12:48 says that a stranger could eat the Passover after he was circumcised. So if Gentiles already had a way to enter God's covenant (circumcision), then why did Christ have to die for them to become part of the people of God? Is the answer solely a matter of Christ setting up new rules, or is there something else?

So the presentation was really thought-provoking. Not every lecture interests me enough to make me think about it afterwards, but this one did.