“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”Deuteronomy 10:16
Here is a verse that can only be interpreted allegorically in its spiritual sense, whereas Moses speaks to Israel as a type of Christ. It was just as Jesus had spoken to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus could not understand the Lord’s words, responding, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4). Could it be that Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel (John 3:10), did not know this verse, or perhaps forgotten it? Could he have responded to Moses’ words in the same way he responded to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? “How can a man circumcise the foreskin of his heart? Can he cut open his chest and clip off the excess around the aorta?” Most Jewish teachers also understand the heart, the Hebrew לבב (lā-VAV), to be a spiritual matter, akin to the soul, being the center of one’s awareness and understanding. Still, how does one circumcise this? This impossible command speaks of regeneration. Later, Moses will expound upon how this must be accomplished: “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut 30:6). When God saves us by His amazing grace through faith in Christ, He resurrects our souls, which was dead in sins and trespasses; He renews us with a right spirit with the indwelling Holy Spirit; He gives birth to a new creation that turns from sin to Christ; He circumcises the foreskin of our hearts. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Unless the Lord had been my help When His grace I did need, My heart would not be circumcis’d And I’d be lost indeed.
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Jon Cardwell writes devotional thoughts like the one above & sends them via email daily. Go to www.calvarybaptistninilchik.com/devotionals.html or click the optional weblink below.
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