On Circumcision, Antinomianism, and New Life (Part 1)

Our Present Age Vol 2, No. 7

On Circumcision, Antinomianism, and New Life (Part 1)

Jacob Patrick Collins

14 April 2023

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Prelude (Πέρι Λυκειῷ)

This is the first in what I intend to be a two-part series exploring the question of circumcision in the Scriptures. For those aware of current issues in biblical studies, this issue has been well worn-out through publications on one side by books like Stendhal’s Paul Among Jews & Gentiles (Fortress, 1976), Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Fortress, 1977), Dunn’s The New Perspective on Paul (Mohr Siebeck, 2005), and most recently Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress, 2013); on the other side, we have books like Gathercole’s Where is Boasting? (Eerdmans, 2002), Barclay’s Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2017), and Linebaugh’s The Word of the Cross (Eerdmans, 2022), three books which have dealt nearly decisively with the so-called “New Perspective on Paul.” What, then, remains to be said of the issue? I intend to approach the question of circumcision indirectly, first with an analysis of two scriptural passages (Romans 9:1–18 and Joshua 5:1–12) and then with a critique of the common reading of circumcision as a “boundary marker” like the food code. The second paper will expand on a point made in passing in the previous one: that circumcision must be thought of as a fundamental part of the covenant made, not with Moses, but with Abraham. In this sense, as Paul says in Galatians 4 and Romans 9, those who are circumcised in their hearts are counted as sons of Abraham. This means we must also address, however obliquely, the apparent James-Paul contradiction controversy by refuting both heresies of antinomianism and legalism, which are tightly bound up with the issue of circumcision.

Perhaps unpopularly, my reading of the contemporary church says our issue is not one of antinomianism, where “everyone does what is right in his own eyes,” but legalism; especially when  books like Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying (J. W. Bradley, 1650/51) and The Whole Duty of Man (Charles Harper, 1691) consistently find their way onto the lists of recommended works by priests and pastors in the Anglican tradition. The issue which we run into is that we have defined grace in line with Wright’s understanding of Paul: “Final Judgment according to works…was quite clear for Paul (as indeed for Jesus). Paul, in company with mainstream second Temple Judaism, affirms that God's final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led—in accordance, in other words, with works.”^[1] And while no thoughtful Protestant Christian would ever say they agree with this sentiment, our preaching and publications say otherwise. David Zahl points out the fundamental problem with this in Low Anthropology (Brazos, 2022): we affirm that we are justified by faith as a free gift of God apart from works, but then suggest that we have a responsibility to live holy lives if we wish to be saved by faith, for we say, “Faith without works is dead.” This is an irresponsible reading of Paul and Jesus, and I intend to demonstrate as much through an analysis of the relevant texts, and this means also dealing with the New Testament idea of justification, which has become tightly bound up with the question of circumcision; for how does one count as being part of the covenant community? And how does one maintain their status in it? How can we reconcile the ideas presented in James, and in some broader sense with the teaching of Jesus throughout the gospels, especially Matthew (e.g., 5:48)? What counts as grace? We will address all these questions in part two.

In many ways, this path has become well-trod in recent years among biblical scholars. What I want to do is come at the issue linking circumcision, not to the Mosaic covenant, like advocates of the New Perspective do, but to the Abrahamic one; and in so doing we will address how (what Bonhoeffer calls) “costly grace” has been misunderstood in the modern church.

For those who remain blissfully ignorant (and you are blessed indeed!) of current issues in biblical studies, the question of circumcision seems largely irrelevant. It crops up occasionally in the Old Testament, and it is mentioned in a few places in the New Testament, particularly in the circumcision of the heart. However, the question of circumcision and what it symbolizes (what does the sign signify?) is in fact the central question surrounding the Pauline epistles. How does one come to be in right standing before God? Is it by circumcision that one is counted as part of Israel? Is it by observing every precept of the Law? Is it something else?

In this two-part series, I want to offer a reading of the Bible which says this: you are justified by grace, through faith, and it is not of your own doing; it is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. Where is boasting? It is excluded. By the law of works? No, by the law of faith. We were, are, and will be justified by grace. The cost of grace was borne by Christ: “For freedom Christ has set you free,” and therefore there is neither program nor works which you must do in order to count yourself as one of Abraham’s sons. It is Christ’s work! It is the gift of faith.

Of the two papers in the series, this is likely to be the most tedious since it contains the majority of the exegetical work to justify the theological conclusions drawn in the next one. I encourage those interested in these topics to explore the works cited in the opening paragraph of the prelude, particularly those by Dunn,^[2] Gathercole, Barclay, and Linebaugh. All of these are faithful Christians who are concerned with understanding the Pauline reimagination of the traditional reading of the Old Testament in light of God’s work in Christ (this is the bedrock of Pauline theology). I do maintain, however, that this paper is important for the next precisely because it provides the Scriptural justifications for the assertions I intend to make in the next paper. There too are the theological justifications, all of which are centered around this statement: our final justification comes into the present and transforms our lives, based not on works, but on faith. We do not believe this, deep in our hearts; but here, I argue, is the gospel, the only means by which we can be saved.

Reading Romans (9:1–18)

As I mentioned before, we must first deal with what Paul says about the new Israel in Romans 9:1–18, which belongs in a broader sense within all of Romans 9–11.^[3] Elsewhere, Paul deals with the circumcision of the heart as a particularly unique Christian phenomenon drawing on imagery presented in Jeremiah 31; for the new heart given is what enables us to profess faith. Here, I don’t want to consider directly the passages surrounding the circumcision of the heart but instead consider what we say circumcision is; that is, why does Paul use language like “circumcision of the heart” when he could easily say “a new heart” or “renewed minds”—language he is more than comfortable using elsewhere? Does this tell us something about circumcision? Yes! It tells us that the sign of the new covenant is in continuity with the old; the “sacrifice of God is a broken spirit,” and the circumcision of the heart is the central activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives to renew us.

In our reading, Romans 9:1–5 provides a transition from the consideration of the two laws in Romans 7 and 8 to the question of those saved under the law in Romans 9–11. The question Paul has asked in Romans 2:12–17—-Can my obedience to the law save me?—has already been answered in Romans 7:1–12, and that with an emphatic no. The question then remains about the status of those who received the law, and Paul is careful to explain that the Jews have retained a unique status before God even after Christ’s resurrection. We know that they will be saved—or at least some part of them, the remnant Isaiah speaks of in 10:20–21 of those who truly believe in God. Paul has great love for Israel, for he is willing to be separated (ἀνάθεμα) from Jesus because of his great love for Israel. Like Jesus was accursed by hanging on his tree (Gal 3:13) and forsaken by God (Matt 27:45–46; Ps 22:1), so too Paul is willing to separate himself from God and from Israel for the cause of Christ. The cause, the reason why Paul is willing to separate himself, is because this is how he can imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1): the cause “is Jesus Himself, Who is so beloved.”^[4] Paul affirms that the Israelites, Paul’s kinsman according to the flesh, are the physical descendants of Abraham who received the adoption, glory, covenants, law, worship, promises, patriarchs, and the Messiah himself and so are blessed beyond measure as God’s chosen people. If he could follow in Christ’s footsteps, taking on the curses of the world for the salvation of his people, then he would take them on willingly. “Let the anathemas come upon me,” Paul cries, “But let my people believe!” But they do not believe. This is not the Israel which is counted as the people of God, those who receive the blessings of the covenant promises.

In Romans 9:6, Paul introduces a distinction he fleshes out through verse 13 of this chapter. It is the distinction between the old and new Israel—between what he elsewhere calls the “Jew κατα σαρκα” and the “Jew κατα πνευμα” (cf Rom 8:13) Though he affirms they are separate, Paul attempts to define a community, not by blood, but by faith. In his new schema, there is the Jew, who received the adoption, glory, covenants, law, worship, promises, patriarchs, and that crowning jewel, Jesus Christ himself. They are the Israel according to the flesh, the physical descendants of Abraham. They are unique as the called-out people of God, those whom God took out of Egypt and brought to the promised land. Second in this new schema is the Gentile, the ἔθνος. Now I say that this is a new schema, but that is not entirely true. Throughout the Old Testament we see a distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles, like in Isaiah 2 and Amos 8. We see a plain difference between God’s called-out-people and those whom God has not called, the ones referred to as the “nations.” We have the remnant of Jews, yes, spoken of in passages like Isaiah 10:20–22; 37:32; 46:3; Micah 4:7; and Amos 5:15, but we also have what Walter Benjamin has called the “non-non-A”; for our purposes, the “non-non-Jew.” The non-Jew, the Gentile, has become in Christ a new creation, something different entirely to what he was before. He is emphatically not a Jew, for the Gentile does not receive the benefits of the Old Testament faith in the same way the Jews have. In this way he is a non-Jew, like all other Gentiles. But Christians, that is, those Gentiles who have come to believe that Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah who has come from God to save the world from its sins, are not like all other Gentiles because they have been saved by faith. In this sense, we are non-Gentiles because we are not condemned to destruction (Thanks be to God!). Therefore we each are non-non-Jews, somehow heirs of the covenant promises with and like the Jews according to the flesh all the while remaining distinct from them.^[5] This argument is the hinge of Romans 9–11, and I intend to spend more time developing it using the outline of our passage itself beginning in Romans 9:7. The grafted-in Gentiles are the non-non-Jew.

This distinction is critical and lies right at the heart of our passage, and Paul illustrates it himself through a series of examples. In the text is a whole cast of characters: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, Moses and Pharoah, all individuals who play a role in God’s plan of redemption for the world. To understand what Paul accomplishes in this passage means that we must understand the Jewish Scriptures in the same way, which means that we must develop a larger narrative framework for making sense of the Old Testament stories. We can make sense of this enigmatic statement: “not all from Israel are of Israel” (9:6), only when we have a greater sense of the entire testimony of the Hebrew Bible. This is what Paul sorrows for in verse 2: that, not rightly understanding the their own Scriptures, the Israelites have rejected Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah.^[6] And though Christians have accepted and believe a priori that Jesus is the Christ (this being the defining boundary of the faith), they cannot fully understand the life and ministry of Jesus—and indeed, the entire divine plan of redemption for the world—without also understanding the theological context into which Jesus spoke. And therefore to make sense of our identity as Gentile converts, as the non-non-Jew, we have to understand the covenantal plan of redemption God has been tracing out in history. Our Christian duty is to understand the events of the Old Testament in light of their Apostolic interpretation; in this case, examining the OT through the Pauline lens.

We begin with Adam’s expulsion from Eden. In Genesis 3, God cast Adam and Eve out into the darkness. They were not welcome in Paradise on their own, for sin cannot be tolerated. This is what put, as you have heard before, the whole world under the bondage of sin: “Through Adam sin came into the world, and death through sin” (Rom 5:12). However, there is a promise that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, and even though the serpent’s seed will bruise the heel of the woman’s seed, the child of the woman will triumph, for he has the final victory (Gen 3:15). Genesis 4–11 outlines a history of a world lost in its own sin: Cain and Abel, Lamech and the Nephilim, the Flood, the Tower of Babel. God holds out hope for his people, however, by calling out to the man Abram: “Go,” he says, “from your home to the land that I will show you.” And God promises to bless and protect Abram and his descendants, holding out before him the promise of eternal life: “through you, all the world will be blessed” (Gen 12:1–3). God promised Abram a son in his old age, but this promise is impossible:

Facing the human, faith says ‘no.’ It hears God’s impossible promise—“I will give you a son by Sarah (Gen 17:6)—looks at Abraham’s age and Sarah’s barrenness, and laughs (Gen 17:7; Rom 4:19). But faith’s focus is not the believing human; it is the “God” who is “able to do as he promises” (Rom 4:21). And looking here, faith laughs again: “the Lord did to Sarah as he promised…and Sarah said, ‘the Lord has made laughter for me’” (Gen 21:6). As Paul reads Genesis, Abraham’s “faith was counted to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3, 22) “because” (διό, 4:22) it is this double laughter: even as faith considers Abraham’s age and Sarah’s barrenness and says, “death” (Rom 4:19), it hears the promise and “believes the God who gives life to the dead” (4:17; 4:20–21).^[7]

It is through Isaac that Abraham’s offspring are named (Gen 21:12; Heb 11:18) and not through Ishmael. Though Ishmael is a son of Abraham by blood, he does not receive the blessings of the covenant promises. The same of Jacob and Esau later on. For God chose Jacob over Esau, and then chose Jacob’s twelve sons.^[8] It is to those twelve through Moses God gave the covenant at Sinai. There he introduced the characteristics which are to define the people of God. After the covenant at Sinai, it appears that God has uniquely called out his people, and all who identify themselves as people of Israel are also people of God. The method by which one could identify themselves—and more importantly, be identified as—part of the people of God was to become part of Israel, and this meant following the Mosaic Law. Even though this reading of God’s call of Israel is understandable, it is fatal, for it misrepresents who the people of God actually are. From God’s point of view, the “people of God” is not synonymous with “people of Israel.”^[9]

And so with all this understanding of the Old Covenant behind us, we can return again to the question we posed at the beginning: What is the status of Israel? All Israel will be saved: “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob’; ‘and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins’” (Rom 11:25–27; Is 59:20–21). The Jews retain some unique status as God’s people, but we Gentiles are not excluded from the covenant promises because we have been grafted into the covenant family, into the people of God (Rom 11:17–24).

But what is Israel? We can now return to that enigmatic statement in Romans 9:6: “Not all from Israel are of Israel.” For just as “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” so too not everyone who receives the covenant promises will receive the blessings of new covenant life. The Word of God is irrevocable, yes (11:29). But who is that Word of God given to? Israel according to the flesh? No, it is given to Israel according to the Spirit. And what is Israel according to the Spirit? It is those who possess the πνευματικόν, the spiritual (1 Cor 15:42–44). This is not a disembodied spiritual existence. Rather, it has to do with a sort of being concerned with spiritual things; in Paul’s case, one indwelt or affected by the Holy Spirit. One whose life is marked by faith in Christ is also a life indwelt by the Spirit of God.^[10] This is a foretaste of the resurrected body of which Jesus enjoyed the firstfruits. Our new lives, animated by the power of the Holy Spirit, are counted as heirs of the blessings which God promised to Israel beginning in Genesis 12.

Here we arrive at the question which animates the entire discussion of Romans 9–11: “Has the Word of God failed?” And Paul says, and we too may say, no. The Word of God has not failed because God has been faithful to it. The whole narrative of Scripture, God’s great unfolding plan of redemption, has come to fruition in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.

What does this Word of God do? It is written down in the law of Moses, providing a diagnosis of our condition. It is spoken by “those who preach the good news,” offering a solution to our plight (Rom 10:15; Is 52:7). And written and spoken word come together to point to the revealed, incarnate Word of God, the λογος of John 1. The Law is and remains the Word of God; the promises God made to save Abraham’s descendants and through them save the world remain true. But both are redefined around the cross. So has the Word of God failed? It looks like it has. Think of the binding of Isaac (akedah) and how, at the last second, God stayed his hand. For three days Abraham traveled with Isaac through the desert on his way to Mount Moriah. For three days Abraham looks to his right and sees the son of the promise, the one of whom God said, “through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” And he thinks, “Can God, who said he would give me innumerable descendants through this son of mine, through whom God intends to redeem the world back to himself—did God really say, ‘Sacrifice to me your only son’?” And they’re going up to the mountain, and they get to the point where Abraham has gathered wood, and he has bound Isaac to an altar, and with tears rolling down his face, he lifts up his knife, preparing to kill the son of the covenant promise. And though God stays his hand, and Abraham believed that he would receive Isaac back from the dead (Heb 11:19), we see here an example, like in Esther, when the promises of God, the Word of God, looks like it has failed even though it has not. It has been redefined, clarified, and God maintains his faithfulness to his word.

But now we come to the last part of our passage. Is God unjust in choosing some over others? Is it wrong for God to say, “Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated” (Rom 9:13)? By no means! There is no injustice for God to choose to save some and not others, for he says, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (9:15; Ex 33:19). Election (God choosing Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau) is not based on their righteousness but upon “the choice of the one who calls.” They are chosen “by the purpose of God and are adopted as sons.”^[11] It is plain that, though the reference to Malachi 1:2–3 in Romans 9:12 is to the descendants of Jacob and Esau, using their names to refer in shorthand to the nations which came from them, Paul here refers both to the nations (God chose Israel and not Edom) and also to the individuals: “The younger shall serve the older” (Gen 25:23). God is not unjust in choosing whomever he wills, for “I will have mercy, &c.” It is not because they wish to be chosen, nor because they have tried to be accepted by God, but because God has shown them mercy.^[12] And therefore, when we are counting ourselves as new creations in Christ, when we receive our new name as Sons of God, adopted into the covenant family, then we are marked out by faith and become heirs of the covenant promises.

What God looks upon and names—this is a new reality. Look even in the story of Abraham. Here are simple letter additions—from Abram to Abraham, and from Sarai to Sarah—but an whole new reality slips into a new name. For Abram, his name changes from “exalted father” to “father of a multitude.” In so doing God points forward to a time when his descendants have overshadowed him; and though the Israelites will never forget who their father was, Abraham now exists, not for his own state of exultation, but for his descendants, the multitude which will come from him (σπέρμα Ἀβραὰμ). This is a new creation, a new moment in God’s eschatological plan for the world (Gal 3:16). For Abraham and Sarah’s new names signify the start of something new, the beginning of God’s call and marking out of a special people for himself: “Instead of producing the small, it produces the great; instead of the particular, the universal; instead of the mortal, the immortal.”^[13] God condescends to rename some part of the created order and in so doing begins to symbolize a new reality, begins to crystallize the arrival of the coming Christ.^[14] When God says, “I have chosen you,” he has given us a new name—“My child”—and when we receive that name we begin to live in light of our new creation, simul iustus et peccator. When God looks upon me and my sin in judgment, he sees his mercy incarnate; not because I asked him to look there, nor because I earned his good favor, as Paul says in Romans 9:15, but because he chose to have mercy upon me. But because God had and is having mercy upon me, at the end God will not say, “Depart from me,” but, “You are mine.” And in this way, because God has said it, we have become the people of God. Every Christian is part of the people of God because God has said it is so. When his Word goes forth it does not return void (Is 55:11), but it gives birth to a new thing. And so when Christ comes fully into his kingdom, and all his enemies are placed under his feet, then God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28), and we in Christ, and Christ in God (1 Cor 3:23).

Israel, in Romans and for Paul, now consists of those who have been uniquely called out by faith; they are the elect of God, chosen, not on the basis of their works or their will but on the basis of the one who first called them. It is the remnant of Israel the prophets talked about and the newly grafted-in Gentiles. It is not the seed of Abraham according to the flesh but the seed of Abraham according to the Spirit. It is, in short, those who have been circumcised in their hearts; and circumcision is therefore a sign of faith.

Reading Joshua (5:1–12)

While not the clearest passage from the Old Testament, Joshua 5 is instructional for the issue of circumcision. This passage can be divided into three sections, each of which we will address in turn. In 5:1, which can feel a bit out of place (but it really is thematic for understanding all of 5:2–6:27, and we’ll see why in a moment), we have the reception of Israel in the land: there was great fear in the hearts of the Amorites and the Canaanites—those who dwelt in the land, who knew their time of judgment had come. Second, 5:2–9 outlines Israel’s first act in the land, and we will see that their first act in the Land of the Promise is to voluntarily take on the sign of the promise. Third, 5:10–12 outlines the celebration of the Passover according to the prescriptions in the Law, and this shows the ongoing mercies of God: for instead of providing manna, God has blessed them with the fruits of the ground. We’ll take each of these sections in turn, showing how they build on one another in a cascade of promise and fulfillment; for every time God has promised something to his people, he is faithful to fulfill it, and Israel in turn worships God by marking themselves out as his people.

Let’s begin now with the first section, which is this long verse right at the beginning. It is the fulfillment of the promise God made in Joshua 4:24: “all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” Here in 5:1 we see an immediate example of someone who heard and saw the mighty hand of the Lord. The Amorites and Canaanites saw that their time of judgment was at hand, and they knew they were on the losing side. For this is the central question of 5:1, and this question is asked again and again during the period of the Judges, during the kings, during the exile, and by the prophets: whose side are you on?^[15] This comes up again and again in Joshua, for he says, “Choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15). And the people, not wishing to be outdone in service, respond, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods,” and the justification for this is God’s faithfulness to Israel to take them out of bondage in Egypt, to guide them in the wilderness, and now to go before them in the conquest of the land. For this is the thread that runs through Joshua, and indeed through all the Scriptures: it is the thread which says that, despite Israel’s failures, God is faithful to his promises; even when it takes forty years, and an entire generation goes the way of the earth, in the end God he has shown himself faithful to the promises he made to Abraham.

Now we go back to 5:1: when the native kings heard how God dried up the Jordan river, what happened? Did they see Israel, an invasive species like grasshoppers, like Israel viewed itself? Numbers 13:33 tells us that the Nephilim were in the land, but these Nephilim, these giants, are scared of Israel! Why? Why would the kings, the Nephilim, the giants of the land with their defensive fortresses, their bulwarks and towers, their mighty standing armies and alliances spread across the land—why would they, of all people, fear Israel? Because, even before the conflict, they have been routed. Even before Israel lifted a finger in defiance of the foreign occupation (and we know that the Canaanites and the Amorites are the occupiers of a land that is not their own, and thus they represent the foreign occupation)—before Israel ever said, “We will run you out, king,” God has gone before them and taken away the spirit of their enemies. And therefore victory is easily attained because God fights for Israel. In Joshua 5:1 we see that the Lord has already begun fighting for his people. His enemies have no spirit, but Israel has the Holy Spirit.^[16] God is with his people, and he is already fighting for them; and indeed, he has already won!

We see this play out over and over again throughout Joshua: the defeat of Jericho (6:1–27), Ai (8:1–29), Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon (10:1–15)—and how many more!—we see again the victory of God over the forces of evil, over these foreign occupiers of Israel’s rightful inheritance. Even here, signified nearly silently in Joshua 5:1, we get a small glimpse of a theme which marks the rest of the book: here, we see that God fights for Israel, the Holy Spirit is with Israel, and even the forces of evil have no chance at stopping the power of God.

Joshua 5:1, even if it feels a little out of place here, is actually central for helping us interpret everything that comes after in the second part of the book (6:1–12:24). Because here we have the idea that God fights for Israel. Israel does not rout a king on their own; Israel does not really do much of anything on their own. That question, “Whose side are you on?”, comes into sharp relief here. For the invitation is open for anyone to join Israel—we saw that back in Joshua 2, with the story of Rahab. If the Canaanites and Amorites turn to God, they will receive forgiveness and be admitted into his people, but they don’t. Instead, their spirit goes out from them, and they resign themselves as enemies of the Israel of God. And therefore God sets his face against them, and already he has given Israel their victory, just as he has given us, through Christ, our victory.

Now all that sets us up for the events of Joshua 5:2–12, which hang together more closely than 5:1. Joshua 5:2–12 is an important interlude between the initial transgression across the Jordan River into the Promised Land and the initial siege of a Canaanite city. In other words, Joshua 5:2–12 serves as a thematic link between a general taking of the land (3:1–5:1) and the specific military movements of Israel (6:1ff.). Here we see that Israel does not take the land on her own accord but through the power of God. Thus covenant obedience, more particularly God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Israel, are the means by which Israel will conquer the land. We see salvation through water (Josh 3:1–5:1), followed by circumcision (5:2–9), which corresponds to our baptism; we see the celebration of the Passover, which corresponds to the Last Supper and our Eucharist (5:10–12), and, as we will see, an encounter with the preincarnate Christ (5:13–15).^[17] In another sense, and I think a truer sense, the events of Joshua 5:2–12 are the final stages of preparation for Israel so that they can inherit the Land. For the pericope comes at the end of an initial section outlining Israel’s preparation to inherit the land. It is only after the establishment of a new leader (with God’s accompanying favor), spying out the land, crossing the boundaries, establishing a memorial of God’s faithfulness, being circumcised, and finally celebrating the Passover. It is only then that Israel is sufficiently prepared, particularly spiritually, to receive the Promised Land—and this is what they do in the very next chapter, beginning with Jericho.

It is here, though, just after crossing the Jordan River, we see the first of several covenant renewals in Joshua. Covenant renewal is the driving force behind all the events of 5:2–12. We see Israel uphold the sign of the covenant, choosing to identify themselves as the called-out people of God.^[18] This is not Israel earning its salvation: as Paul points out (Rom 4:11–12), Abraham is counted as righteous (Gen 15:6) before he is circumcised (Gen 17). Rather, circumcision is a mark of God’s faithfulness, a continual reminder that the Lord who was with Abraham—who called Abraham out of Haran and brought him to the Promised Land—will also be with Israel, who was called up out of Egypt and brought to that same Promised Land. The act of circumcision signifies a new beginning to these people. Though they are always the people that wandered the wilderness—the whole explanation for the circumcision in Joshua is that the people had not been circumcised during their desert wanderings (5:4–7)—they are now marked out as faithful participants in the covenant unlike their fathers. Until this point, Israel had received the blessings of the covenant (notably, special protection from God), but had not taken on a public sign so that the world would know these are the people of God. By renewing the covenant in this way, and by voluntarily taking on the sign of the covenant first given to Abraham, the people demonstrate that they are taking up their mantle as Abraham’s sons and so are heirs of the Promised Land. Going all the way back to Genesis 15 and 17, we now see the promised goods of circumcision coming full circle: circumcision is a sign, not primarily of the Mosaic covenant, but of the Abrahamic one; and therefore taking on circumcision is taking on Abraham’s name, declaring to the whole world that Israel has now received a new name: sons of Abraham, and thereby sons of God. And this is why we have to see the events of Joshua 5 as the final stage of preparation before Israel can enter the Promised Land. In Genesis 15:5–6, God promises to give Abraham innumerable descendants, to make him a great nation, and Abraham is justified before God by his faith in the promise. And then in Genesis 17:8, God promises to Abraham that those descendants will receive “all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.” The sign of those who are Abraham’s sons, God goes on to tell Abraham, are those who have been circumcised. And therefore those who can rightly inherit the land, who can walk across Canaan’s soil and rightly say, “Behold, all this is mine,” are those who are counted as Abraham’s sons, and to be counted as one marked out as a son of Abraham is to bear the mark of circumcision.

What does all this mean? It means that Israel has answered the implied question of 5:1—whose side are you on?—and said that, by taking on the name of Abraham, they have taken on the name of God. They are on the Lord’s side, and therefore they intend to keep his covenant. As we see in Judges, this does not always work the way they intend it to, but Israel, at least at the beginning, wants to find themselves in right relationship with God. Whose side are you on? Israel has said, “We are the Lord’s,” and by professing faith in the risen Christ we too say, “We are the Lord’s”: “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:7–8). In all of life, by taking on the mark of covenant membership (which is faith!), we declare ourselves to belong to the Lord. And therefore, by casting all our hopes on the risen Christ, the one who perfectly fulfilled the law (Matt 5:17–20), we too can receive the benefits of being sons of Abraham: an eternal possession in the Land of Promise (Heb 9:15).

And now let’s return to the enigmatic verse: By circumcision, “I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you” (Josh 5:9). Covenant renewal takes away the reproach of Egypt because it signifies that Israel is truly God’s people, and that whatever they have done wrong has been redeemed by the Lord.^[19] We established this already, so there’s no need to spend more time on it. I do not know what the reproach of Egypt is, but I do not think that negates the broader point.^[20] Not circumcising in the desert is a sign of God’s displeasure on that generation, for the punishment for sin is wandering in the wilderness. Here in verse 9 is the climax of God’s faithfulness, for no longer are they counted as slaves; no longer are they counted as Egypt; but they are counted as sons, and they are counted as the people of God.^[21] It’s all here: the reproach of Egypt means the stink of Egypt, their status as slaves in a foreign land under the dominion of foreign idols, who are demons, is rolled back; they can now breathe the sweet air of freedom! And though they still have to finish conquering the land, we go back to 5:1 and have assurance that God is doing the fighting; he goes before Israel, and therefore they have victory already in hand.

Now we turn to the third section: the celebration of the first Passover in the Land of Promise. Passover is a restricted meal: only the circumcised may eat the Passover (Ex 12:48), and therefore it is only after Israel marks themselves as God’s people they can take the sign of God’s continual blessing of his people.^[22] Circumcision is a one-time event; Passover occurs again and again, for here is the reminder that God is good to deliver on his promises. If circumcision is what marks an Israelite out as a member of the covenant, Passover is what reminds him of the benefits of the covenant. Here, God supplies for his people in a new way. For forty years he gave them manna from heaven; for forty years he supernaturally sustained them with food for the journey. Even in Israel’s faithlessness, God was faithful to the promise he made to Abraham and to Moses: You will inherit this land, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. This is the pattern of the promise, and by declaring themselves to be on God’s side through circumcision Israel receives again the specific benefits of the Promise: that God will pass over them, and remember their sins no more (Jer 31:34; Heb 8:12; 9:17). We have here the fulfillment of the promise of faith: it is not in keeping the Passover, nor in being circumcised, that Israel is ever counted as God’s people. It is instead faith in the God of the promise, faith that, despite all evidence to the contrary (the giants are in the land!), God loves his people and intends to lead them to new life in a new land.

Like Joshua 5:6, 2 Corinthians 8:15 uses the events of Israel’s wilderness wanderings as an “hour of birth” for a new nation. Both plea with Israel (in Paul’s case, the new Israel) to remember God’s faithfulness “to supply all your needs” and therefore to obey him, even beyond what feels humanly possible. God provided manna in the wilderness for Israel; now, he provides for them from the fruit of the ground. And this, of course, is the pattern of God over and over again: to take what is impossible for us and then to do it.^[23] This is the promise of faith: that God can create out of nothing, justify the ungodly, and give life to the dead. Here we see Israel and Canaan: two sides in a conflict on a small strip of land a long time ago. But here too we see Israel marking themselves out as God’s people and so receiving the benefits of faith. Here too we see their answer to the question of 5:1: whose side are you on? and we see their answer is, “the Lord’s.”

Lest I continue to exhaust the reader, I will end the essay here; and by God’s grace, I will return to conclude the arguments made on circumcision, antinomianism, and new life, in part two of this work.

JPC

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^[1] N. T. Wright, “New Perspectives on Paul,” 10^th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference, 2003. There are obvious overlaps with the Eastern Orthodox idea of synergism, which can find no basis in the NT (apart from Origen’s reading of Romans 9:14–18, which we explore briefly below). If you can explain how to reconcile synergism with the NT, then please tell me.

^[2] By the end of his life, Dunn had largely come to reject the ideas he earlier advanced about the New Perspective and came to embrace the traditional Protestant reading of Paul. Because of his intellectual honesty, he is a particularly good interlocutor on the other side of these issues.

^[3] Broadly speaking, Romans is structured as a chiasm. This reading of Romans allows us to see, contrary to the common reading of Romans’ structure (e.g., Reardon, SVS, 2018, pp. 79, 115, 137), the central part of the book is the distinction between the two laws. This is everywhere in Romans: the law of works and the law of faith, the law of sin and the law of God; and thus our passage (Rom 9–11) must be read in parallel with the earlier passage (Rom 3–5).

a. Introduction (1:1–1:7)

b. The problem of sin applies to Jews and Gentiles (1:8–2:29)

c. God justifies and is justified by faith (3:1–5:21)

d. The law of sin and the law of God (6:1–8:39)

c'. Those whom God chose are justified by faith apart from the law (9:1–11:36)

b'. The Holy Spirit enables new living free from sin (12:1–15:13)

a'. Conclusion (15:14–16:27)

Of course, we can continue to further divide each section under headings, but this outline is sufficient. Understanding Romans as a chiasm helps us make sense of why Paul apparently, in our pericope, is returning again and again to questions he addressed earlier in Romans, particularly in chapter 4: he is restating and expanding the principles he previously introduced to emphasize the point he intends to make. That is, Paul insists the covenantal promises are no longer restricted to Jews according to the flesh, but to Jews according to the Spirit. Jews according to the Spirit includes both the remnant of Israel and the Gentiles who have been grafted into the covenant family. Both of those groups are those who have faith in Jesus Christ and thus have the Spirit of God and the hope of resurrection life.

Therefore, Romans 9–11 has a literary context informed both by 3:1–5:21 (the first half of the chiastic couple) and 6:1–8:39 (the immediately preceding section). Paul has finished explaining the two types of law—the law of sin and the law of God—and how the law of sin is the law we read in the Old Testament. Even though the law is good and perfect (because it too is the Word of God!) it is not and was never intended to be the instrument of salvation. Instead, God has intended faith in the risen Son to be the means by which one becomes a child of Abraham and therefore an heir of the covenant promises; i.e., salvation, consisting of the Holy Spirit and the hope of resurrection life.

Wright also argues that Romans 9–11 is a chiasm in itself. If so, our interpretation of Romans 9:1–18 must be informed by what Paul later presents in Romans 11:1–36. See Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress, 2013), 2.1163–1164, who argues the center of Romans 9-11 is Romans 10:9.

^[4] John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans, Hom. XVI, trans. J. B. Morris et al., vol. 1.11 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 459–460. See also Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 6–10, 7.13.4, trans. Thomas P. Scheck, vol. 104 in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, ed. Thomas P. Halton et al. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 106–107.

^[5] See Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on Romans, trans. Patricia Dailey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 53–55, citing among others Nicholas of Cusa, De non aliud.

^[6] See arguments in Ellis W. Deibler, Jr., A Semantic and Structural Analysis of Romans (Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998), 208.

^[7] Jonathan A. Linebaugh, The Word of the Cross: Reading Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022), 17.

^[8] All the twelve sons of Jacob receive the covenant blessings except for Dan (Rev 7:5–8). Is this punishment for his wickedness during the time of the Judges?

^[9] See Deibler, Semantic, 213.

^[10] See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 350, 353, citing esp. Rom 1:11; 7:14; 1 Cor 2:13, 15; 3:1; 9:11; 10:3; 12:1; 14:1, 37; Col 1:9; see also Rom 15:27; Gal 6:1; Eph 1:3; 5:19, 6:12; Col 3:16; 1 Pet 2:5.  See too Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 791. Philo uses similar language but to articulate a point reflective of a Greco-Roman worldview in his allegorical exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2. Philo, influenced by Platonic thought, suggests the non-physical, or heavenly, man of Genesis 1 was not corruptible, while the physical one was because he was embodied. Thus the only path to salvation, or incorruptibility, is to escape from the material world into pure spirit; so, Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 273.

^[11] Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 6–10, 7.15.4, trans. Thomas P. Scheck, 112–113.

^[12] See Deibler, Semantic, 218.

^[13] Philo, De mutatione nominum, 124–25. In this series of contrasts, Philo draws a distinction between a single individual and the larger group which comes from them and what those name changes signify.

^[14] The same can be said of the Apostle himself, the one who “persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor 15:9). He was born as Saul, the namesake of that first great king of a united Israel (1 Sam 9:2) and as such was great in himself (Phil 3:4). Saul had every reason to boast: born of the tribe of Benjamin and named for the tallest, most handsome, most powerful man in Israel, for Saul is a royal name. But here again a single letter change communicates a whole new reality. By changing his name from Saul to Paul, the Apostle changes his name from the regal to the slave, to the “least of the apostles” (1 Cor 15:9). By taking on this new name, Saul redefines himself, not as a great man in himself, but of nothing compared to the one he serves. See Agamben, The Time that Remains, 9.

^[15] L. Daniel Hawk, Joshua (Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 79.

^[16] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of Joshua, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949), 77. See too Adolph L. Harstad, Joshua (Concordia Commentary; St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), 222.

^[17] Harstad, Joshua, 218.

^[18] Harstad, Joshua, 224. See Hawk, Joshua, 78–79, who sees the rite as “a transforming act which affirms the people’s decision to choose the God who has chosen them.”

^[19] Calvin, Commentaries, 82.

^[20] Scholars differ on the referent of the “reproach of Egypt.” The majority of modern commentators view the reproach as somehow related to circumcision, such as its cessation since Israel left Egypt (Harstad, Joshua, 236, citing Gen 17:14), or perhaps the uncircumcised state of the current generation (Hawk, Joshua, 81). These are largely the same thing. Calvin offers a different view: the reproach of Egypt refers to the usurpation of the rulers of Egypt, using God’s name to justify their actions (Commentaries, 81).

^[21] Calvin, Commentaries, 79.

^[22] See Origen, Homilies on Joshua, 68, 75.

^[23] See Linebaugh, The Word of the Cross, passim, esp chs 1–3. See also Peter Balla, “2 Corinthians,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds. G. K. Beale & D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 775.