The Conquest of Canaan and the Kingdom of God (4) The Meaning of Circumcision

“Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt - all the men of military age - died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not.” (Jos 5:1-5)
 
We’ve been talking about the kingdom of God through the story of the Exodus. For the last two weeks, we talked about the meaning of the Israelites crossing the Jordan River.
 
They didn’t have to cross the Jordan to enter Canaan. But God made them cross the river when it was most impossible to do so, in order to let them experience His great power of salvation and trust in Him more.
 
But first, they had to step into the fast-flowing river. God promised to stop the river, but that promise depended upon their obedience. The river would not stop until the priests trusted God's promise and actually dipped their feet into the river.
 
That’s how God trains and equips us as the people of His kingdom. He expects us to become His strong, courageous people who are not influenced by the world but influence it.
 
To do this, God sometimes puts us through difficult situations. He waits for us to take the first bold step, trusting in Him and His promise even when the reality before us seems hard, because that’s when we can really grow in the knowledge of God and our experience of Him.
 
Our faith in God is strengthened when we actually experience the knowledge of God that we have gained from the Bible, and those who have such faith are not easily shaken, no matter what difficulties come their way.
 
We must also remember that God never leaves us alone in our difficulties. Even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He is always with us, guiding us with His rod and His staff. That is why we can keep going forward in obedience to God's word without fear as we face the difficult moments of life.
 
Because we know that God’s ultimate plan for us is to prosper us and give us hope and a future, not to harm us, we can continue to walk the narrow path with Him, looking forward to what He will give us at the end of this journey of faith.
 
Circumcision
Now, let’s move on to the next event. The Israelites had just crossed the Jordan River. Finally, they entered the land of Canaan, the land that God had promised to give to their ancestor, Abraham, hundreds of years before. They probably felt both joy at entering the promised land and fear at the enemies that lay ahead of them.
 
The nations in the land of Canaan also heard the news that the Israelites had crossed the Jordan River. They knew that the Israelites had already defeated the kings on the east side of the Jordan River. Now all that was left was war - a battle to take or lose the land of Canaan.
 
After crossing the Jordan River, the Israelites camped at a place called Gilgal, which was not far from Jericho, the first city they had to conquer.
 
So, what did they have to do there? Normally, people preparing for war would have checked their weapons, checked the condition of those who could go to war, and checked their supplies. But God didn't tell them to do any of those things.
 
Rather, God said to Josuah, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” (Jos 5:2)
 
God's first command to the Israelites in Canaan was to be circumcised. That’s because the first generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt were all circumcised, but the second generation born in the wilderness were uncircumcised.
 
As you may know, circumcision is an important ritual that served as a sign of God's people.
 
When God made a covenant with Abraham, He said, “The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God. As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner - those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.” (Gn 17:8-13) 
 
As we can see here, circumcision was the most important sign that the Israelites were God's covenant people. Circumcision is very closely related to their identity as God’s people. In accordance with this covenantal command, all Israelite male children were circumcised at eight days of age. For some reason, however, the Israelites born in the wilderness were not circumcised. That’s the reason God commanded them to be circumcised first.
 
So, it's understandable that God commanded the Israelites to be circumcised. But, what's not so easy to understand is why God gave this command to them at this time. The Israelites who needed to be circumcised were adults, not children. Some of them would have been nearly 40 years old. Circumcision for these adults would have been extremely painful, and they would have been immobilized for several days while they recovered. So, to be circumcised in the presence of their enemies was very dangerous.
 
The best time to perform circumcision would have been before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, not after. The east side of the Jordan was a safer and more appropriate place to perform circumcision. Then, why did God command the Israelites to be circumcised after they had crossed the Jordan?
 
I think it’s because God wanted to show them that He was in control of all of their lives, including their battles. God wanted the Israelites to know that their lives and the success or failure of their battles depended on Him protecting and guiding them, not on their weapons or strength. In other words, by exposing the Israelites in this way at the most dangerous point in their journey, God demonstrated His power to protect them and His sovereignty over their battles.
 
So, the Israelites were circumcised in Gilgal at God’s command. Again, it was not an easy command to obey, because it would make them weak and vulnerable before their enemies. Nevertheless, they chose to obey because they trusted God, who had led them there, more than they trusted their circumstances.
 
The command to be circumcised must have required greater faith than the command to cross the Jordan.
 
Sure, God had commanded them to dip their feet first in the fast-flowing Jordan, but that was only for a few priests. The vast majority of the Israelites crossed the river on dry land after it had stopped flowing.
 
But now the command of circumcision was for all Israelites, and they were aware of how vulnerable they would be as a result. But they still chose to obey.
 
And I think the reason they were able to make the decision to be circumcised there was because they had just experienced how great and powerful God is through their experience of crossing the Jordan River. That experience enabled them to obey an even more difficult command: to be circumcised in the face of the enemy.
 
In other words, the faith of the Israelites grew and was strengthened through their obedience to God's command. Because they obeyed God’s command, they could experience His presence and great power. And that experience made them trust in God more and gave them the courage to obey Him in all circumstances.
 
I believe that’s how God trains us to be His people as well. The battles and conflicts we face now should be seen as training grounds that God uses to prepare us for greater challenges to come.
 
God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” (Jr 12:5)
 
The difficulties that God allows us to go through now are so that we can stand firm and keep our faith when greater tests come our way in the future. And God does not give us trials that we cannot handle. So our attitude toward God in difficult situations should always be obedience to His will.
 
Circumcision of the Heart
Going back to circumcision, the corresponding Hebrew verb for circumcision is mûl, whose basic meaning is “to cut off.” So what did the Israelites have to cut off through circumcision? It was physically the cutting off of a piece of flesh, but the more important significance of circumcision is in the heart.
 
The word circumcision means “cut off,” and this cutting off was basically a circumcision of the heart - the removal of those parts of our hearts that are thick and stubborn against God. Physical circumcision was just an outward sign of this circumcision of the heart, meaning that what really matters is the change in our hearts, not the outward ritual.
 
This importance of a change of heart in circumcision is also found in Deuteronomy.
 
Moses said, “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.” (Dt 10:16)
 
He also said, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” (Dt 30:6)
 
God also said through the prophet Jeremiah, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done - burn with no one to quench it.” (Jr 4:4)
 
As we can see from these verses, what God expected of the Israelites when He gave them the command of circumcision was that they would cut off their hearts, tear down all the walls they had built up against Him, and love Him with all their hearts. What God really wants from us is not our outward religious acts. He sees the center of our hearts.
 
The importance of circumcision continues in the New Testament. The apostle Paul said in Romans 2:28-29, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.” (Rm 2:28-29)
 
As we see in this passage, it's not what we look like on the outside that God really cares about, but the condition of our hearts. God doesn't want us to be religious only on the outside, but rather to have our hearts centered on Him.
 
Then, what happens if we don't cut the skin of our heart and leave it thick against God?
 
Mark 8 records an event in which Jesus fed four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and two fish. After that, He got into a boat and traveled to another place. But the disciples forgot to bring bread. Seeing this, Jesus warned them, telling them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod. What Jesus meant when He said “yeast” was their hypocrisy. But the disciples didn't grasp the meaning. They simply thought He was rebuking them for not bringing bread.
 
Knowing this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?” (Mk 8:17-18)
 
Jesus said that their hearts were hardened. Here, the Greek word that’s translated as “hardened” is πωρόω (pōroō), which means to cover with a thick skin and to harden by covering with a callus.
 
When you’re first learning to play the guitar, it's difficult because the skin on the fingers that hold the strings is soft and tender, and it hurts. But if you keep playing, you develop calluses on your fingertips, and you feel less pain when you hold the strings.
 
That was the condition of the disciples' hearts. Their hearts had become dull, hardened, and thick, so they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying to them.
 
That's what happens when we allow our hearts to become thick: we have eyes, but we don't see; we have ears, but we don't hear; and we don't remember the things God has done. We hear God's word, but we don't understand it. And if this persists, eventually our hearts become so thick that we don't hear God's voice at all.
 
The apostle Paul said, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” (1Tm 4:1-2)
 
Here, the expression “seared as with a hot iron” is a rendering of the Greek word καυτηριάζω (kautēriazō), which means “to mark by branding.”
 
In those days, runaway slaves were branded with a hot iron, and the branded areas gradually hardened and eventually lost sensation. The skin could no longer function properly.
 
That's what happens when we allow our hearts to become hardened against God. Our hearts will be covered with calluses and we will lose our spiritual sense of God, just as branded skin loses its sensation. Even when we sin, we will not feel it as sin.
 
Paul said in Ephesians 4:18-19, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” (Eph 4:18-19)
 
This is what happens when we allow our hearts to grow thick and stubborn against God. The first time we do something wrong before God, we feel immense guilt in our conscience. But, when it happens over and over again, we become numb to it. We start to rationalize it to ourselves, saying that's just the way it is, that's how other Christians live too.
 
And if it continues, our conscience will lose its function. As a result, we lose our spiritual senses and naturally live in sin according to the evil desires of our flesh, not according to the way God wants us to live.
 
What makes me afraid is that we can become like this and still go on with our religious lives. That is what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were like. The one word that characterizes them, according to Jesus, is “hypocrisy.” With their lips they honored God, but their hearts were far from him. They kept the law, but they had forsaken the spirit of the law—justice, compassion, and faith.
 
Jesus likened them to “whitewashed tombs”: they looked fine on the outside, but their hearts were full of dead and unclean things. That was the spiritual condition of the religious leaders.
 
Jesus said to them, “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” (Mt 23:26)
 
I believe this is the same instruction that Jesus is giving us today. When we come to the Lord, we should always look at how sensitive our hearts are to Him. Rather than trying to look right and godly to people, we should be more concerned about looking right to the Lord.
 
So today, I want us to examine our hearts before Him. And if our hearts are thickened by our own desires, sins, idols, cares, and anxieties, if our hearts have become so dull that we have lost our spiritual senses, I want us to tear our hearts, cut the thickened skin, and return to Him. We must return to the Lord quickly before it's too late, before our hearts become like branded skin, so stubborn that we can't feel anything.
 
If we humbly lift our hearts to the Lord, asking for healing and restoration, He will touch our broken hearts, mend them, and replace them with clean, pure, tender hearts. This is what God said through the prophet Ezekiel,
 
“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.” (Ezk 11:19-20)
 
We cannot soften our own hearts, which have become hard like stone because of sin. But God can. To fulfill these words of the covenant, God sent Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to us.
 
There is no sin that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot wash away. No matter how stubborn it may seem, His blood can cover it all. We cannot remove the stigma of sin on our own, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ can remove it, set us free, and transform us into God’s people.
 
So, I want us to humbly lift our hearts to Him today. I want us to cut out the areas of our hearts that we can cut out, and lift up to Him the areas that we cannot. Then He will come into our hearts and cleanse and purify them with His blood, and He will strengthen our inner beings by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s the circumcision of Christ Paul talked about in Colossians 2:11:
 
“In [Christ] you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ” (Col 2:11)
 
Without this circumcision of our hearts, without cutting off the thick and hardened skins of our hearts, we can’t possibly live as the people of the kingdom of God.
 
I hope and pray that all of us here today will be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the skin of our hearts will become like new flesh, that we will have tender hearts, that we will have a spiritual sense that's sensitive to the Lord, that we will be victorious by faith as children of God on this earth, and that we will live lives that build up the kingdom of God.
 
With this desire, let’s sing “I Give You My Heart” one more time before we close with prayer.
 
[Prayer]
Heavenly Father, we thank You for speaking to us today through Your word and enlightening us to Your will.
 
Lord, we come to You by tearing our hearts and lifting them to You. Please renew our hearts, which have become hardened and thickened against You because of our sins, our love of the world, and our evil desires.
 
We invite You into each of our hearts. Please come, touch, mend, and renew our hearts now, so that we may not live lives that look holy on the outside and are filled with all kinds of filthy things on the inside, but rather live lives that resemble Jesus Christ both on the outside and the inside. 
 
We want to serve You with a new heart. Purify our hearts through the precious blood of Jesus Christ and strengthen our spirits through the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we may live the holy lives that You want to see in us.
 
Lord, we hear You knocking at the door of our hearts now, and we open our hearts to You. Come, dwell in us, and lead us always in Your will and Your ways.
 
We pray that You may use us as Your vessels through which You build Your kingdom here on earth. May only Your name be glorified.
 
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1) What do you think is the relationship between the knowledge of God, experience, and faith? Have you ever experienced your knowledge of God leading you to obey Him? How did that experience affect your faith in God?
 
2) What do you think makes your heart thick and hardened before God? Is your heart thick or soft towards God now? What practical things can you do this week to have a clean and tender heart before Him?