I'm still here because I like puzzles, and I like mental excersize and trying to figure things out. I like following debates and sometimes offer my brain jumble in type.
just skip it if you want to. Lol
Whether for religious conversion (inward) that one wants to make outward, or for hygienic reasons, it would seem that Grace would allow for either, or both.
Well said. Great point!
I think even with an extreme modern procedure, grace is going to "cover it" even if someone later decided the all off foreskin removal was more then was required.
The more extreme cut that those adhering to Judaism came up with (according to historical info) was in response to what exactly? Pride or envy? A desire to be distinctly different or better then other believers? To go the extra mile or rather inch or two in what they sacrificed to be in covenant?
Peter after the vision that prepared him for the assignment, and then seeing Holy spirit given to those in the household of Cornelious said "Can any forbid water?"....not circumcision. One might assume they were already circumcised, but that detail does not appear important enough to record.
That story also tells us that John the Baptist initiated a baptism of immersion. This seems to have been the outer sign of the believers heart (circumcised heart?) that put any convert into the body of christ. When they added souls at Pentecost they counted those baptised.
Maybe part of why Paul said "if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing"
You would then be trusting in the wrong thing.
Baptism= finished work of redemption. The believer is a new creature who's sins are covered by Yeshua's shed blood.
Getting circumcised after baptism? Might reveal a heart that really did not believe in that finished work of redemption. = No profit.
Now I'm sure the religious leaders who hated Yeshua and those who believed on Him still wanted to keep as much control of the people as possible, but why would anyone choose to let those Yeshua called blind guides lead them?
This gulf is why Judaism and Christianity are not compatible. Some followed the word made flesh and some followed those who did not want to lose their imagined authority refused to submit themselves to the one who has been given the throne.
We believe those were perhaps not even Israelites circumcised or not. "He is not a Jew that is one outwardly" could have been referencing those that Yeshua said were NOT His sheep.
If you have not yet read about king Herod, the Jewish Encyclopedia last time I checked still had enough info there to show you an Edomite heart.
(Search herod the great, but herod the terrible would be far more accurate!)