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30. The Sign of the Covenant


Eight Days Old
Genesis 17:10-14, and Luke 2:21
Key verse: On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He had been conceived. 
Luke 2:21

When we discussed this passage in Genesis back on Day 7, I had mentioned that this covenant of circumcision represented the first covenant that would require something of man, but I also said that God Himself would submit to it as well.  Now is the time that God will submit to the covenant that He made with Abram long ago.  Jesus is eight days old.  The time has come for Him to undergo what He Himself had ordained. 

Just as Abram's name was changed at the initiation of the covenant of circumcision, now at this circumcision, the baby will be given the name, Jesus, or in Hebrew Yeshua, which means, salvation. 

There is a profound lesson in the Jewish rite of circumcision.  First of all, God had declared in his law that after birth the mother is unclean for 40 days.  This is to be a reminder that every child is born with a sinful nature that contaminates and corrupts whatever it touches.  For seven days, we are reminded that sin is born of the flesh.  We all come from Adam.  Then on the eighth day, circumcision, an act of faith, reminds us that salvation comes from faith in God’s Word about these things.  The circumcised come from Abraham, to whom the covenant unto salvation was first given.

At Jesus’ circumcision, God was taking another opportunity to identify with our humanity.  He is submitting to a covenant and law that He Himself made.  He is allowing Himself to be marked and identified with the people that He promised to save. 

What amazing love, that God would choose to walk with us in every way.  He could have remained above us, demanding that we follow Him because He is God and He created us and He knows better, so we should just listen and obey!  While He certainly had that right, He understood that we would not understand that as love.  In this act of submission to the covenant of circumcision, that He Himself ordained, God is speaking our love language and saying once again, "I understand and I am with you."

Hymn: "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly" 

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