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Subject 11-1 : The Tabernacle
[11-10] The Promise That God Established as the Covenant of Circumcision Is Being Fulfilled for Us Today as Well (Genesis 17:1-14)
(Genesis 17:1-14)
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.
2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.’
3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying:
4 ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.
5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.
6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as 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 descendants after you throughout their generations.
10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
11 and 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 child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.
13 He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.’
The covenant of circumcision that God made with Abraham in Genesis 17 was showing the spiritual circumcision inside the Tabernacle, in which a sinner laid hands on the sacrificial offering to pass over their sins and cut off the sins.
In other words, even in the covenant that God spoke to Abraham, the burnt offering and the grain offering were presupposed.
Today, we know and believe that God promised Abraham through circumcision that He would be God to him and his descendants,
and this was foretelling the truth of salvation in the sacrificial law of the Tabernacle, in which sins are passed over to the sacrificial offering by laying on of hands to cut off sins.
We also must know and believe that this shows how, in the New Testament era, Jesus received baptism from John and bore the sins of the world.
God promised Abraham, “And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly” (Genesis 17:2), and again God promised, ‘And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be”’ (Genesis 15:4-5).
The promise that God established with Abraham and his descendants was made through circumcision.
This circumcision was the laying on of hands performed in the sacrifices of the sacrificial offerings inside the Tabernacle that were to come.
Also, in the New Testament era, it was the washing away of sins accomplished by Jesus bearing the sins of the world through the baptism He received from John.
We must properly know and believe that the circumcision that God promised Abraham in the Old Testament represents the spiritual circumcision of the washing away of sins that was carried out in the New Testament by Jesus Christ through baptism.
And we must understand that even in the sacrificial offerings inside the Tabernacle, the same kind of faith as Abraham’s was well shown to be necessary.
God said to Abraham, “And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant” (Genesis 17:11-12).
Therefore, it means that God made the promise to Abraham and his descendants through circumcision. “He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:13).
So, in the old days, among all the people in the world, only the Israelite men were circumcised.
Today, many people perform circumcision because it has been revealed to have medical benefits, but at that time, only the Israelites and the males belonging to them practiced circumcision.
That was the promise that God made to Abraham, and God let the sign of the covenant He made with Abraham and his descendants, the people of Israel, be in their bodies.
“And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17:11).
Circumcision is the sign of the covenant.
To summarize the words in Genesis 17:4-14:
God said to Abraham,
“How will it be known that you are My people?
By seeing that the foreskin has been cut.
From now on, among those who are born, every male shall cut the foreskin.
Thus, My covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant.
I have promised that I will be your God and the God of your descendants.
And I promise to bless you, to multiply you greatly, to let you enter and live in the land of Canaan, and to raise up kings from among you in all the nations.
The kings who rise up in all the nations of the world, I will raise them up through your people.”
God promised this.
God said that all the covenants He established with Abraham and his descendants were in their flesh.
The mark of circumcision received by the Israelite males contained God’s promises.
In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with the people of Israel through circumcision, and through that covenant, whether or not they had received circumcision determined whether they were considered descendants of Abraham.
Those who were circumcised were acknowledged as descendants of Abraham and were given blessings, and those who were not circumcised were not acknowledged as descendants of Abraham.
In Fact, to the People of Israel, Abraham Is an Extremely Important Figure
To the people of Israel, the father of faith, Abraham, is an even more important figure than Moses, the father of the Law.
While there are many among the people of Israel who do not know Noah, there are almost none among the people of Israel who do not know Abraham.
If Shem, Seth, and Methuselah remain in the memories of only a few people, Abraham remains in the memories of all the people of Israel as the unforgettable ancestor of faith.
The people of Israel all acknowledge Abraham as the founder of their nation, and they believe and follow him in that way. That is why the word that God promised to the people of Israel through Abraham is still valid for them even now.
In the hearts of the people of Israel, there is a firm belief in themselves, saying, ‘We are descendants of Abraham. There is the mark of circumcision on the flesh of our people. Therefore, God is our God, and we are God’s people.’
The reason there is the idea of being the chosen people in the hearts of the people of Israel is because there still remains in their hearts the faith that believes in the covenant that God made with Abraham through circumcision.
Abraham had a principal wife and a secondary wife. Abraham’s principal wife was Sarah, and his secondary wife was Hagar, who was Sarah’s maidservant. Since it seemed that Sarah would not be able to bear a child, she tried, by human thinking, to have a child through Hagar (Genesis 16:1-4).
However, God clearly spoke. Since Sarah was Abraham’s primary wife, He said He would give many nations as numerous as the stars of heaven through the child born from Sarah’s body (Genesis 17:1-4).
Because God promised that only the child born from Sarah’s body would be acknowledged as God’s people, Ishmael, who was born of the concubine Hagar, was not acknowledged before God.
If the people of Israel had not received circumcision, the promise that God had set for them would be invalid. God commanded them to perform circumcision as the sign of the covenant so that the covenant would be in their flesh.
Therefore, if the people of Israel did not perform circumcision, God’s promise could not exert its effectiveness, and for that reason, they necessarily carried out circumcision.
There was probably no one among the people of Israel who did not undergo circumcision.
That is because they knew very well that one who was uncircumcised was like a Gentile who had no part in God’s promise.
Spiritual Circumcision
The covenant of circumcision that God established with Abraham and his descendants was, in the New Testament era, the forgiveness of sins that was fulfilled when Jesus Christ came to this earth and received baptism from John the Baptist to take upon Himself the sins of humanity.
God commanded that blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine twisted linen be woven to make the entrance curtain or the veil of the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:31, Exodus 27:16), and through this model of the Tabernacle, He taught us about the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.
Those who believe in the truth that the Lord came to this earth, received baptism at the age of thirty to take on the sins of humanity, died on the cross, and rose from the dead to remove all our sins — they are the spiritual descendants of Abraham.
God has become the God of those who believe in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine twisted linen revealed in the Tabernacle.
We must receive spiritual circumcision by believing in the baptism that Jesus received. This spiritual circumcision means cutting off the sins of one’s heart by believing that through the baptism Jesus Christ received, all our sins were passed onto Him.
Therefore, today, those who have received the forgiveness of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit revealed in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine twisted linen used in the Tabernacle are kings and sons of God before God.
Just as He promised, “kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6), God’s people are arising by faith all over the world.
If we want to become descendants of Abraham, we must believe in the baptism and the blood of the cross that Jesus Christ received when He came to this earth. Therefore, it is impossible to overstate how important it is to know and believe in this baptism that Jesus received.
Jesus Christ is the King of kings. He is Jesus Christ, the King of kings who came wearing a purple robe. Jesus Christ is the King of the universe and the Creator who created the universe.
However, because He is the only begotten Son of God, He obeyed the will of the Father and came to this earth, received baptism to save us from sin, and took on our sins all at once.
He received baptism to remove our sins, completely cutting off our sins, carrying them all upon Himself, and shedding His blood on the cross to receive the judgment for all sins. Therefore, those who believe this truth become the descendants of Abraham.
Abraham, his family, and his descendants all received physical circumcision.
God also commanded that those bought with money from foreigners should receive circumcision. When they also believed in the covenant and received circumcision, they received the blessing of Abraham’s God becoming their God.
Therefore, it is by faith that we become children of God, by faith that we receive God’s blessings, by faith that we go to heaven, and by faith that we live as royalty on this earth.
This refers to the faith of those who believe in the fact that Jesus took on the sins of the world through the baptism He received from John in the New Testament.
However, some people say that the baptism Jesus received when He came to this earth is not very important. This is because they believe that they received the forgiveness of sins only by believing in the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.
Therefore, they believe in the laying on of hands on the head of the sacrificial offering in the tabernacle of the Old Testament, but do not consider the baptism that Jesus received to be very important.
So, they say that Abraham’s faith was recognized even before Jesus gave Moses the tabernacle, so even without the exact word about baptism, one can be saved from sin by believing only in the word about the blood of the cross.
However, we must keep in mind that in the Bible, in order to let Abraham know that God would give the land of Canaan to him and his descendants as an inheritance, God told Abraham to take a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon, and in God’s heart, He had in mind the sacrificial burnt offering or the fellowship offering when He said this.
“And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces” (Genesis 15:17). God said that the faith based on the sacrificial burnt offering that Abel offered was right, and the faith of Cain, who did not believe in the sacrificial burnt offering, was not right.
Today, among those who believe in Jesus, there are so many people who misunderstand and believe that they have received salvation just by believing in Jesus, without receiving spiritual circumcision by faith.
They do not believe in the fact that their sins were transferred through the baptism that Jesus received, but only believe in Jesus who was crucified, and such people can never become God’s people. This is because by believing in that way, the sin in their hearts cannot be removed.
Just as God said that the sign of His promise is on the body of the one who is circumcised, those who are not circumcised have nothing to do with God’s promise.
Can one be saved from sin, become a child of God, go to heaven, or become royalty without believing in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist at the age of thirty when He came to this earth? The answer to that question is a definite ‘No.’
The word we have heard today tells us the exact evidence for this.
The promise that God established with Abraham is the same as the promise He makes to you and me today, who have received the removal of sins by believing in Jesus Christ as the Savior and by believing in the baptism Jesus Christ received and the blood of the cross. The words of blessing that God spoke to Abraham apply in the same way to those who believe this.
Those Who Believe in Jesus Do Not Follow Doctrines Made by Man
The Word of God revealed in the Bible is, the more you look at it, an even clearer and absolutely evident truth of salvation.
Today, among those who believe in Jesus, there are people who believe and follow according to their own mistaken thoughts, not even knowing that they are believing in something false. Such a person has come to have a wrong faith from the very foundation of faith.
If one simply thinks, ‘Jesus saved me,’ and believes that way, it may be sufficient for themselves, but they must know that God does not acknowledge that person’s faith.
The Lord said that whoever wants to believe in and follow Him must first deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him.
Whoever believes in the Word of God must lay down their own thoughts and believe according to the Word of God.
Today, you and I must believe in the removal of sins that Jesus Christ, who came to this earth, gave us by receiving baptism, taking away the sins of the world, shedding His blood on the cross, and rising from the dead.
Today, there are so many people who do not believe this way, but just cling to the name of Jesus and believe in their own way.
Their faith has nothing to do with the gospel of water and the Spirit that Jesus gave. For example, if someone says that while praying on a mountain, Jesus appeared and said, ‘I have saved you,’ and so they believe they are saved, that person is exactly such a person.
Or, if someone realizes their own worthlessness, repents, and because they are so tormented by sin, comes to the church, fasts, and prays all night, and then believes that all their sins have disappeared, that is also such a person.
That is not salvation by believing in the gospel of water and the Spirit given by the Lord.
Where in God’s Word does it say that if you do such things, your sins will be removed?
They vaguely know that God is the Absolute One and that Jesus is the Almighty, and they borrow that name, add their shallow and trivial knowledge, and combine it with their unsaved thoughts to call on God in vain. For those who claim to have been saved from sin in this way, it only brings more of God’s wrath.
Such people have created their own version of Jesus, fabricated their own salvation, and are believing in that.
“And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (Genesis 17:14).
God has clearly promised that He will save you and me from sin through spiritual circumcision. And God has clearly promised that only those who are born again of water and the Spirit become children of God.
Therefore, those who do not believe in the baptism that Jesus received but believe only in the blood of the cross cannot become children of God. This is because they have not believed in the gospel that God promised, and thus they have betrayed God, and because of that, they will be cut off from God and come under a curse.
The foundation of faith for being saved from sin is the gospel of water and the Spirit. Only when the gospel of water and the Spirit is laid as the basic foundation can one fully believe in the Word of God.
How can Gentiles, whose hearts have not even received spiritual circumcision, hold the Word of God in their hearts? They cannot.
The gospel of the water and the Spirit allows one to receive spiritual circumcision to become a child of God, so if this foundation is not in place, one can only listen to God’s Word as mere knowledge.
Therefore, only those who fundamentally believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can receive spiritual words. And only those who are born again of water and the Spirit can understand the Word of God.
When I meet those who do not know the gospel of water and the Spirit and claim to be born again only by the blood of the cross, although they say with their mouths that they believe in the same God, it feels as if they are each talking about a different person with the same name.
Which one is the true God? It is the God who gave the word of promise to Abraham who is the true God.
God promised Abraham and his descendants, “My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:13).
Where is the sign that you and I have received the forgiveness of sins? It is inside our hearts.
We have become children of God as those who have the heart that believes in spiritual circumcision by believing in our hearts in the baptism that Jesus Christ received.
We have received spiritual circumcision because we believe in our hearts that the Lord received baptism because of our sins and took upon Himself all our sins.
With the faith that believes in the truth, we passed our sins onto Jesus, and Jesus Christ carried our sins, died in our place, and rose from the dead to save us from all sins.
We have become children of God by faith. We have become those without sin by faith.
Everyone, do you have sin? No, you do not. The fact that there is no sin in our hearts has been accomplished by the truly amazing truth of the gospel.
How Were You and I Able to Become Descendants of Abraham?
It is because we received spiritual circumcision by believing in the ministry of Jesus revealed in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread.
Because we believed in the baptism Jesus received when He came to this earth and in the blood of the cross, we received spiritual circumcision and became children of God.
Because we believed that Jesus bore our sins through His baptism and that He received judgment for our sins through the cross, we received the removal of sins.
Therefore, you and I have become, spiritually, the descendants of Abraham.
Now, those who have been born again of water and the Spirit must clearly recognize who they are.
You and I, who believe in the gospel of water and the Spirit, are God’s children and God’s people who have received spiritual circumcision by faith. We are those who, in the future, as kings in the Millennial Kingdom, will rule over all God’s creatures and enjoy glory. Our status has now been changed in this way.
Can the people of the world recognize us? No, they cannot.
We are those whose status has been changed by believing in the Word of God. Therefore, we now clearly know, spiritually, who we are.
Those who have been born again by the Word of God know their status well and live accordingly.
We are fundamentally different from those who, within the religions of the world, boast of themselves, spread false doctrines while knowing nothing, and live far from being God’s people.
Just as the Israelites dealt with the descendants of Ishmael, we, the spiritual children of Abraham, as God’s children, are worthy to have a sense of being the chosen people.
Our status is that of Abraham’s descendants, born again of water and the Spirit, and having received spiritual circumcision.
We, who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, are fortunately able to become descendants of Abraham by faith.
We can go to Heaven by the faith that believes in the gospel of the blue, purple, and scarlet thread revealed in the Tabernacle.
And, just as God promised Abraham that He would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, we will see that this covenant is actually fulfilled for us. This is the blessing that God has given.
God has saved us from the sins of the world through the circumcision of the heart. The materials of this circumcision of faith are the blue, purple, scarlet thread, and the finely twisted linen.
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