Colossians 2:11-12 (NIV)
In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Paul’s early life was immersed in the Jewish ceremonial law. In accordance with that law, he had been circumcised on the eighth day after his birth (Philippians 3:5). And for the first three decades of his life, he learned and rigorously applied the law to his life, even to the point of persecuting those who didn’t believe in the law as he himself did (Philippians 3:6).
But when Paul met the risen Jesus on the Damascus Road, all that changed. He suddenly realized that even though his external body had been conformed to the law by circumcision and outer adherence to ritual and sacrifice, his inner self, his soul, was fouled with sin, and his heart was uncircumcised and impure.
When Paul surrendered to Jesus, when he was baptized by Ananias (Acts 9:17-19), he experienced a complete inner transformation. His heart was purified, his sins were washed away, and even his motives were changed instantly. It was as if his heart itself had been circumcised, enabling a genuine purity and holiness that his external circumcision had never been able to effect. It was exactly as if the old Paul had died with Jesus, and a new, transformed Paul had been raised in his place.
Paul understood that there were some who professed to be Christians, but who had merely transferred over to the name of Jesus their old external, self-made, ritualized purity, but who had not been transformed by God’s grace. Many of these were Judaizers, who pushed circumcision and Jewish ritual ahead of faith in Jesus, who pushed adherence to the ceremonial law ahead of transformation.
But Paul fully understood that only circumcision of the heart, a real death to the sinful nature, and a complete inner transformation brought about through faith in Jesus, was the only true way to salvation and holiness. So, he encouraged the Colossians to stand firm in the faith they had entered into, and not allow themselves to be derailed by those who had not experienced that transformation themselves, but only had a hollow theology and human-devised philosophy of external righteousness.
Father, thank You for this real transformation, this true circumcision of the heart that I myself have experienced through faith in Jesus. I really was given a whole new life, not just a doctrine to accept. I was given a clean slate and a pure heart, not just a theology to learn. I know that there are some in the church today who are still pursuing a self-made holiness, an external righteousness that depends not on a real death to sin and a real inner rebirth and transformation, but on striving and working. And I know that a lot of those people are frustrated at their lack of spiritual progress. Help them, Lord, to see the truth, to understand that your yoke is easy, and your burden is light (Matthew 11:30) because it calls us, not to a higher level of striving, but to a death to striving and an inner transformation in You. Help me to share the good news boldly, today and every day, so that those trapped in legalism can find the full freedom of a real new birth. Amen.