The only name—and circumcision—that saves

Sermon for the Circumcision and Name of Jesus

Galatians 3:23-29  +  Luke 2:21

On this first day of a new year, it’s good and right that we should give thanks and praise to God for seeing us safely through 2022, for all the blessings He provided, both physical and spiritual, for His patience with us and His mercy toward us when we foolishly strayed, in our sinful weakness, from His commandments, for the forgiveness He has freely given in Word and Sacrament, and for all the challenges that forced us to give up on ourselves and to fix our eyes, instead, on Jesus and His Word. And it’s also good and right that we should ask the Lord for His blessing on us in this new year, that He would graciously provide for us, shield us from harm, defend us against every enemy, help us through every adversity, keep us faithful to His Word, cause us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, and use us to spread His Word, both here and throughout the world. Those are good things to focus on on New Year’s Day.

It’s also good and right that we should, on this 8^th day of Christmas, commemorate the event that took place on the 8^th day after the Son of God was born in Bethlehem: His circumcision and the name He was given on that day. The name part makes good sense to us. After all, the angel Gabriel had already told Mary and Joseph, separately, what the Child’s name should be, and its significance: You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. “Jesus.” Savior. We understand the importance of that name. What not as many people understand is how directly the saving mission of Jesus was tied to His circumcision. Without this event in the life of Jesus, He wouldn’t have been the Savior. Because He wouldn’t have been the Christ. He wouldn’t have been able, 33 years later, to institute the New Testament in His blood. Baptism would have no meaning. And we would still have to answer to God for our own sins. So let’s celebrate this day in the life of Jesus and consider its meaning for us in the New Testament.

Circumcision can be a delicate subject, but it’s too important not to talk about in God’s house. After all, it was God who instituted that practice for the people of Israel. God commanded Abraham, back in Genesis 17, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your seed after you…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; 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.

From the time of Abraham until the time of Christ, if you wanted to have any part in the covenant God made with Abraham, to inherit the promises made to Abraham and to his seed, then you—if you were a male 8 days old or older—had to be circumcised. That was the sign and seal of the covenant God made with Abraham.

God never explains why circumcision, of all things, became the sign and seal of His covenant with Abraham and his seed. It was certainly a physical marker pointing to the sin that passes down from father to son, showing that sin has to be cut away, and blood has to be shed for it. It pointed every Israelite family to the birth of the coming Christ, to the birth of a baby Boy, descended from Abraham, whose blood would have to be shed for their salvation. And based on the teachings of Scripture, our Lutheran Confessions have provided a good explanation of the purpose of circumcision: (a) that Abraham might have a sign written into his body—a permanent mark to remind him of the covenant God had made with him, to remind him that he was to fear and love God as one who had been made an heir of eternal life; (b) so that, admonished by this, he might exercise faith—so that he would keep trusting in God’s Word and in God’s promises all his life; and (c) that by this work he might also confess his faith before others and, by his testimony, invite others to believe.

So Abraham himself was circumcised. And then, when Isaac was born, the son whom God had promised, he was circumcised on the 8^th day of his birth, and so it continued among Abraham’s descendants until the practice was codified in the Law of Moses some 400 years later. It physically marked a man (and his household!) as belonging to the people of Israel, as being heirs of the promises made to Abraham and bound to the Old Covenant, and it signified that the whole life of the circumcised should be lived under the Law.

By the time of Jesus, the Jews had begun to abuse the sign of circumcision. They had turned it into a good work that, they thought, made them worthy of God’s favor, worthy to inherit eternal life. They put their faith in their physical descent from Abraham and in their obedience to the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses. They boasted that, just as Abraham was justified by his good works, beginning with circumcision, they, too, would be justified by their good works.

It was the Apostle Paul who, in Romans 4, demolished their false belief. There he points out that, according to the book of Genesis, Abraham was justified long before he was ever circumcised. He was justified, not by any work of his own, but by faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness…He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

But faith wouldn’t justify or save, unless the sign of circumcision had been fulfilled, and then set aside, by Abraham’s true Seed and Heir.

So along came the baby, born of Mary, exactly one week after he was born, still without a name, because Hebrew boys weren’t given their name until they were circumcised. And Mary and Joseph fulfilled for their Son what the Law required. Since He was the long-promised Seed of Abraham, this was the day that the whole Old Testament had been foreshadowing, the day when the promised Son of Abraham would be brought under the Covenant, under the Testament, under the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses, with all of its promised blessings for obedience, and with all of its promised curses for disobedience. This was the day that the Son of God entered into the Old Testament, to fulfill it and, later, to replace it with a New and better Testament: the New Testament in His blood—blood that was first shed on this day of His circumcision, a token of the blood that would be spilled about 33 years later on the cross.

What does all of this mean for us? It means that the baby Jesus, on the day of His circumcision, embarked on a lifelong journey of obedience to the Law, not as an example to us, but as a Substitute for us. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 4, When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And how do we receive that adoption? You heard it this morning in the Epistle: For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

As those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, believing in Him as your Savior from sin, you now inherit everything that Christ inherits, both as the Son of God and as the Son of Man, and that includes…everything. But first and foremost, it’s the right to be called children of God. It’s the ability to call God your Father. He is not only the God and Creator of the universe. He is God for you. He claims you as His own son—as members of the one body of Christ. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, Jew or Greek (or any other race), slave or free, rich or poor, because, in God’s sight, baptized believers all wear Christ Jesus as a garment; you are all clean, holy, perfect heirs of heaven through faith in Him.

Now circumcision has been set aside as the entrance into God’s family and as the mark of His adoption. It has been set aside and replaced with Holy Baptism. Listen to how the Apostle Paul makes the connection between circumcision and Baptism as he writes to Gentile Christians in Colossians 2: In Christ you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

Circumcision used to be all-important for people to receive God’s forgiveness. It was all-important for Christ, in order for Him to be our Savior. But now, circumcision no longer counts for anything. Now, if you would have God for your God, if you would be counted among His children, then you must believe in Christ Jesus and receive His Baptism. And if you have already been baptized, then you must keep using your baptism, as a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that is yours through faith in Christ, and as a constant reminder that, as a member of the New Testament in the blood of Christ, you are to live, not as pagans, not as atheists, not as idolaters who will perish in the judgment, but as baptized children of God who will live eternally with Him, and with your fellow baptized. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 5, Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters…For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

That is the calling of the baptized: to live in love—in self-sacrifice, in self-denial, in devotion to God’s Word and in service to our neighbor, not in order to earn our salvation, but because we have been made members of Christ “Jesus.” Savior. The name that was given to our Lord on the 8^th day of His birth. Jesus. The name assigned to that child from eternity and proclaimed by the angel to Joseph. Jesus. The name that is above every name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. A blessed 8^th day of Christmas to you all! Amen.