On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"). (St. Luke 2:21-23)

The emphasis on the Feast of the Circumcision was on the complete identification of Christ with his humanity and his obedience to the requirements of the Jewish religion.

Circumcision was, and remains, a requirement for every Jewish male child. It was, and is, for Jews, the outward and visible sign of the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendents and originates in Genesis 17:

And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner-those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

Christ therefore was taken to the Temple by Mary and Joseph on the eighth day after His birth and was circumcised under the law. The circumcision of infants acknowledged that the covenant came from God down to man, and not from man up to God. No one consulted the infant Jesus in this decision.

The Feast of the Circumcision presents an excellent opportunity to make the connection between the circumcision of the Jews and Christian Baptism in their covenantal context, and to support the practice of infant baptism as believed and practiced by the entire early church.

First, circumcision as taught in the Hebrew Scriptures is clearly to be seen as a foreshadowing of baptism; the outward sign in the flesh, of a spiritual promise. But like the Law itself, circumcision itself never saved anyone from the law of sin and death.

The physical act of circumcision was always a sign, and always pointed to the need for an inward and spiritual grace which was a new heart and new direction in life. This need was referred to, even in the Old Testament, as a "circumcision of the heart". Thus in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, we read "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live." In Deuteronomy 10:16: "Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer."

The prophet Jeremiah writes " Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done- burn with no one to quench it. (Jer. 4:4 NIV)

The passing nature of the outward requirement circumcision of the flesh is seen in Jeremiah 9:26 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh."

Like the Law itself, circumcision could not bring righteousness, it only served as a symbol for the need in each person for God's regenerative grace, through the act of faith which it symbolized,

St. Paul further develops this theme more fully when he writes in the second chapter of Romans: Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the] written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2: 25-29 NIV)

The Jews prided themselves in being Abraham's descendants, but they missed the mark in that they saw their uniqueness as God's chosen people as being by right of inheritance, not by faith. They reveled in circumcision in the flesh as the sign of their special relationship with God while forgetting what it symbolized.

St. Paul, in Romans 4, explains the true nature of the covenant with Abraham in verses 1- 15:
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about-but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works [He quotes the Psalm]: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

Paul continues: Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

In Philippians 3:4-6, Paul makes certain that reader understands that he, Paul, speaks from intimate knowledge, not in a mere academic manner. Paul was both a Jew and a Pharisee, and well versed in the Jewish religion. "If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless."

Then in Colossians 2:11-15 Paul "connects the dots" between circumcision as the sign and baptism as the genuine thing when he writes:

In Him 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, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Paul in Col. 2 is clearly relating the "circumcision" of Christians to the "circumcision" of Jews at two levels: (1) The spiritual reality to which the physical sacrament signifies, & (2) The corresponding distinctive of the physical sacrament as a means of identifying the Covenant People of God. The question he is addressing is the validity of the Gentile Church's claim to be members of God's Covenant people. Note that he says (vs. 11) that you were "also" circumcised, in other words that the Colossians' claim to Covenant people status is of the same nature as those who have been physically circumcised. This is a general restatement of Paul's teaching that "in Him there is no Jew or Greek....", a position to which this passage, in context is building toward (Col. 3:11). This equality of Christians and Jews in covenant status is a major issue with Paul and may in fact be a factor in virtually everything he writes. Note the emphasis that he gives it in Romans 10:12, 1 Cor. 12:13, Gal. 3:28,29 .)

So, in addressing the question of any equivalence in baptism and circumcision in Col. 2:11-15 we must first understand this background to Paul's teaching.

St. Paul clearly understood and here clearly teaches, that neither baptism nor circumcision ever "put off the body of the sins of the flesh." We have already established that the Old Testament is replete with references where God makes mention that the "true circumcision" is a "circumcision of the heart", and Paul specifically details this point in Romans 2:29. In this last passage, Paul's point is that a true Jew is one whose external circumcision has been fulfilled in the internal circumcision which places his heart in right relation to God. Certainly we understand that this reordering of one's life (circumcision of the heart) to such a right relation with God is a description of regeneration.

In the context of the New Testament Church, most Gentile converts were adults and were baptized as adults. This would correspond to a Gentile being admitted into the Jewish race as a convert by undergoing adult circumcision. Paul's language addresses that common situation by referring to the manner in which these Colossians had been admitted into the visible kingdom of God, through baptism. This does not mean that adult baptism was ever intended to be normative in a community which was already made up of believers.

But his point, explicitly made, is that in baptism they were "buried" in the "circumcision of Christ." Now if the spiritual reality of Old Testament circumcision was "circumcision of the heart" then there can be no doubt that the spiritual reality of Christian Baptism stated as by Paul as the "circumcision of Christ."

It seems irrefutable that Jesus' admonition to Nicodemus, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things" (John 3:10) is entirely justified on the very basis that spiritual regeneration through the self-evident work of the Holy Spirit is the only means by which a person can enter into the Kingdom of God. If Nicodemus ought to have known this, then certainly all of his Jewish predecessors ought to have known it also.

Thus, baptism is clearly taught as being the physical equivalent of circumcision because it corresponds to the same external / internal relation to spiritual regeneration that existed in the Old Covenant.

To argue against this, one must assume that in the Old Covenant "salvation" was in some essential manner, accomplished differently than in the New and that the Kingdom of God did not exist prior to Christ's incarnation and therefore could not be "entered into" in the same manner which is now possible. This argument reduces to arguing that salvation in the Old Testament was not of faith in the same manner as it is in the New. If in the Old Testament salvation was not by faith or by a differing content of faith, through God's spiritual regeneration of the individual, giving them a new heart and accomplishing in them an enlightened mind which was able to comprehend God through Christ in essentially the same manner as New Testament Christians, then the argument that baptism is not equivalent to circumcision is entirely valid. If this is argued, then there can be no correlation between Old and New Testament saints. If this is correct then it must be claimed that God deals with them in different ways and justifies them according to different standards. This is, of course, a basic premise of Dispensationalism: God has one plan for Jews and another for all the rest. Anglicans, along with Catholics, Orthodoxy, Lutherans and Reformed Churches are all emphatic in refuting this claim.

"Believer's only baptism" is the logical corollary to Dispensationalist doctrine. In this system, there is no relationship between circumcision and baptism. Since the mid-1800's, Dispensationalists have held a consistent and systematic theology. The question however is not whether or not this doctrine is logically consistent. The question is rather "does the Bible teach this?" We have already seen that St. Paul did see a direct connection between circumcision and Christian Baptism.

The Bible teaches an essential continuity in all of Scripture, and that the object of faith in both the Old and New Testaments is the same. Anglicans strongly affirm the "oneness" of scripture in Article VII of The Articles of Religion, which states, in part:

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises In both the Old and New Testaments, salvation is through Christ alone.

When Paul teaches in Romans that Abraham was saved by faith prior to circumcision, his entire argument rests upon a correspondence between the present faith of the Romans with that of Abraham then there cannot be any essential difference in Abraham's faith and the faith of the Church with regard to either object or manifestation.

In the Book of Hebrews, it is made clear that "the Christ" was the object of the sacrificial system, even if only dimly seen, (Heb. 8:3-5) and He was the fulfillment of the law. Thus, the uniform testimony of all Scripture is that man is saved by grace, through the instrument of faith in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, when Paul speaks in Col. 2 of being made alive together with Christ, having the handwriting of requirements made against us wiped out in the cross, he is not just speaking only of the present Church of Paul's day, but of the entire community of God's elect, and for Old Testament believers this reality was signified by the circumcision of the flesh. For we, who are in the Church, this reality is signified by baptism ("being buried in Him" and thus having the washing of regeneration - Titus 3:5).

The important point is that they both convey the same reality and the same salvation. If in circumcision the sign of God's covenant to save His people through regeneration, by grace, manifested by a true faith in Christ who was to come in the First Advent, and this grace was applied to infants with the confident hope that God in His time would work in the child's life in accord with that covenant promise, then how can it be denied to covenant children today? How could the Old Covenant, which is looks toward the Christ to come, be inferior to the New Covenant in which all things are made complete? In a community of professed believers such as the nation of Israel and the Christian Church, which is the "New Israel" is it not natural that provision is made for children to be the recipient of God's grace? The clear conclusion is that both circumcision and baptism refer to a spiritual circumcision made without hands, the circumcision of the heart is accomplished through the washing of regeneration (Titus. 3:5) proclaimed by Christ (John. 3).

Circumcision thus replaces baptism as the sign of unity and distinction of God's covenant people and is accorded the same status as circumcision in the past and is (implicitly) to be applied to all covenant children because there is no longer any distinctions between male or female (Gal. 3:28).

The baptism of a child signifies that salvation among a covenant people originates from the grace of God, the atonement of His Son on the Cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit and not from a personal "decision".

Each person so grafted into the Church must of course, affirm his or her faith at confirmation, just as a Jewish male "affirmed" his faith in his Bar Mitzvah.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived...