And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, His name was called Jesus. (St. Luke 2:21)

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. for the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward...   (Deuteronomy 10: 16-17)

The Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord is a celebration of the circumcision of the infant Jesus eight days after his birth, in accordance with Jewish custom. As with every male child, this was also the day on which He was formally given his name, Jesus, a name derived from the Hebrew meaning "salvation" or "saviour".

The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen the beginning of Christ's redemptive work in that that His blood was shed as a demonstration that Christ was fully human, and of his obedience to the Covenant. He thus fully identifies with the people of Israel.

Ritual circumcision was introduced by God in chapter 17 of Genesis as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham and his descendents. Abraham was commanded to circumcise every male in his household, whether free or slave and to continue the practice, in perpetuity.

In Genesis 17 God declared "Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people: he has broken my covenant."

Circumcision was a new covenant sign. God had made covenants before; with Adam and Noah. In God's covenant with Noah there was a promise: no more floods; and a sign: a rainbow. In Genesis 17, there is a promise (or covenant) to Abraham and a sign. That sign is circumcision.

What is particularly exciting about this particular covenant is that God revealed himself in a new way. He called himself "God Almighty" or "Almighty God." That name in Hebrew is "El-Shaddai." This is the third name we have seen for God. First was "El" or "Elohim," which describes God as creator. The other name was "Yahweh," which is the redemptive or covenant name for God. "El-Shaddai" fits in between the other two. "El" is "powerful creator," and "Shaddai" is "to overpower." God will overpower nature to fulfill his promise. Thus Mary bears the Christ child with no earthly father.

This promise or covenant also has two very clear parts:      1) God promised to love Abram; and
2) Abram also had to "walk before him and be blameless."

This covenant also bore a corresponding sign. The idea of a covenant sign was not new to Abram, but this was something new. Why would God make this particular command?

The other covenant sign, the rainbow, is a beautiful thing, and it is a public thing, gracefully arching into the heavens. But circumcision by its nature is both personal and painful. Furthermore, it should be self-evident that no man would have thought of this as his choice for a covenant sign. — it originated from God and was an act of trust and obedience.

God does not explain the full meaning of circumcision; rather, he develops it over time. The Bible does not stop explaining circumcision with Genesis. As God continued to reveal himself progressively through Genesis and into the book of Exodus, into Deuteronomy and finally in the New Testament.

Circumcision remained a command of God and a sign of membership in Abraham's family. But it was more than this as well. In Leviticus 26:40-42, God himself revealed the true meaning of circumcision: "But if they confess their iniquity, that they have walked contrary to me, . . . if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, then I will remember my covenant."

Two books later, Moses commanded circumcision of hearts. Deuteronomy 10:16: "Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stiffnecked."

Finally, as God commanded the circumcision of Abram's skin, and God through Moses commanded a circumcised heart, God promised that he himself would circumcise his children's hearts: "And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Deut. 30:6). This is the same "great commandment" of Jesus! (Matt. 22:37).

In Romans 4: 11 St. Paul connects circumcision to baptism:

… and he [meaning Abraham] received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, So the physical act of circumcision was always intended to be illustrative of the need for a circumcision of the heart.

Being born as a physical descendent of Abraham, and being circumcised in the flesh was not a guarantee of salvation or of righteousness. It was an act of faith and obedience. Circumcision was the physical sign of a physical covenant — a national covenant with Israel. Baptism is a spiritual sign of a spiritual covenant with the Church, which is the New Israel. As such it is superior to the old.

Thus St. Paul in chapter 2 of Colossians (2: 11-15) writes:

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

And you, being dead in your sins and the un-circumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Just as He did not require baptism, being sinless, so Christ had no need to be circumcised either in the flesh or in the heart, except as a means of obedience and self-identification.

Scripture tells us "on the eight day", He was circumcised. The full significance of Christ as the fulfillment of messianic prophecy calls attention to the eighth day. The eighth day is Sunday, the day of the resurrection. In Christ, God is doing something new, something that not only fulfills the promise of the Old Covenant, but in fact transcends it.

Anglicans, along with the Reformed, Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, Lutherans, and Methodists see a direct connection between circumcision and baptism.

The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole 'households' received baptism, infants may also have been baptized.

Roman Catholic teaching states that although the first direct evidence of infant Baptism appears in the second century, it is never presented as an innovation, but as being commonplace. The Church fathers all teach infant baptism. St. Cyprian stated that 'God's mercy and grace should not be refused to anyone born'

This is carried over into the Anglican and Reformed traditions. Article XXVII of the Articles of Religion reads:

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1562 as an expression of Reformed beliefs asks this question:

(Question #74) Are infants also to be baptised?, this answer is given: Yes; for since they, as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God, and both redemption from sin and the Holy Ghost, who works faith, are though the blood of Christ promised to them no less than to their parents, they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be grafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by Circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed.

The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God, adopted in 1645, states, in the section on baptism, "The seed and posterity of the faithful born within the church have, by their birth, interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the gospel, not less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament".

So Anglicans are hardly alone in our view that considers children of Christian believers today as belonging to the visible church by virtue of the faith of their parents. Thus we believe that they should receive baptism just as the eight-day-old infants of Israelites did in the Old Testament and just as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did receive the visible right to the sign and seal of the covenent.

It is for this very reason that infants were traditionally baptized when they were eight days old and received their name at their baptism. (To this day, we ask "name this child" at their presentation for baptism.)

The circumcision of the flesh — painfully made with human hands — yields to the circumcision of the heart as symbolized by Holy Baptism. And in this as in all things, Christ is the transitional representative figure in whom all things are fulfilled .

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child,
His name was called Jesus.