In the Old Testament, the principle was not that circumcision belonged to believers and the children of believers-- the principle was that it belonged to the physical descendants of Abraham. This included those whose parents were clearly not believers (e.g. the second generation in the wilderness). What mattered was physical descent from the covenant head.
This might seem like a minor difference, but the more I think about it the more it seems very important to me. The physical descent principle in the Old Testament was fundamentally ethnic or national, not based on the faith of any particular individual or family. Obviously, we do not believe the New Covenant is passed on in the same way. Instead, we believe our connection to the covenant head is spiritual, rather than physical. Putting this together seems to undermine the principle of "believers and their children".
So my question is, how would you respond to this objection from a PB perspective? What am I missing?
1) Circumcision "belonged to the physical descendants of Abraham. This included those whose parents were clearly not believers." This is an assertion, that I presume comes from somewhere, but it's predicated on certain presumptions about the nature of the OT text, the nature of OT religion, a certain way of reading the OT. This is aside from predetermining whether those presumptions are accurate; I'm willing to accede to the observation that I make claims about how to read the OT myself. But it's simply a fact that the idea: circumcision is about belonging to the physical descent from Abraham rather than a spiritual sacrament (or is only the latter in some secondary sense)--requires as much of an
a priori as anything a traditional covenant theologian brings to the text.
Where in the OT, and by what author, does the idea that there is
both an external sign and an inward reality come? As early as Ex.6:12 we have the first plain metaphorical use of circumcision. And Lev.26:41 has the first textual reference to heart-circumcision. So, the sign is given to Abraham, whose story Israel has from Moses, who also is responsible for Exodus, Leviticus, and the rest of the Pentateuch. So, as soon as Israel has an inspired written text, they have a fully formed covenant sign, with both an external presentation and a spiritual meaning. It is the choice of the reader, if he wishes to conclude circumcision's spiritual aspect doesn't exist prior to Moses in history; for my part, I cannot conceive that circumcision was not from its institution with Abraham everything Moses writes later concerning it.
The people come out of Egypt were
supposed to be believers, people attached to the OT church, participating in the great typological salvation-event of the OT age. That the generation come forth from Egypt had a rather large contingent of them whose faith was superficial, and who wanted to go back to Egypt, says nothing about whether they
should have been responsive to a whole host of signs and verbal summons to live by faith. Furthermore, even as you claim a
fundamental "physical decent principle," you give must give it up with every conversion story of alien attachment, so Ex.12:48, cf. Gen.34:15. Are new-minted Israelites just concerned with a physical tie to Abraham they gain by virtue of circumcision? Would such men as these be primarily interested in circumcising their children for mere citizenship benefits and privileges? If they are, is that in the least to their credit, or to the credit of those marketing the notion?
2) The subsequent claim that "the New Covenant is [not] passed on in the same way," is something of begged question. It is wholly dependent on the first assertion going unchallenged. I certainly won't give the former a pass. I deny that the covenant with Abraham was essentially physical, and neither is the New Covenant for the same reasons. Also, Moses is not Abraham; the Siniatic covenant administers the Abrahamic (it "cannot disannul" Gal.3:17), but also contains temporary and terminating aspects unique to itself that dominate its (legal) presentation. Those transitory aspects of Sinai were external, so much so that the days of the "Old Covenant" offer up a marked contrast to a resumed (relative to Abraham) emphasis on the "unseen" quality of the faith in the NT age.
The days of the OT required anticipatory, typological covenant mediators, pointing ahead in history to the Coming One. This role was held by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the patriarchal age. It was held preeminently by Moses when the Old Covenant was instituted, and after him was divided between the priests, prophets, and kings of the nation--all whom pointed to Christ the fulfillment. The reason we don't continue to use such types is because Christ is alive forevermore and eternal Mediator of his church. Were the people of the Old Covenant, and before it back to Abraham and even earlier, were they united to a covenant that was earthly in nature, fully invested irrespective of faith, so long as they could plausibly claim earthly allegiance (with no spiritual component)? Again, that is one way of reading the OT; but I do not believe it was ever meant to be so read, nor is it the way the NT authors read it.
All those figures, along with the heavy typological weight of the signs, were never ends, but means. They were to put the observers and practitioners of the OT covenant ways in mind of the Christ and kingdom of God for which their existence served as the entrance. Covenant people were to look
through the types and shadows to make out (as best they might) the essence of their hope not reduced to those tangible things. This is what it
meant and what it
means to know that he is God to us and to our children.
