Genesis 17:1-13. And when Abram was ninety-nine years old, Jehovah appeared to Abram and said to him, I am the Almighty God! Walk before Me and be perfect. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face. And God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold! My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. Neither shall your name any more be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you a father of many nations. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, greatly so, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come out of you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you. And I will give the land to you in which you are a stranger, and to your seed after you, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, And you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you in their generations. This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin. And it shall be a token of the covenant between Me and you. And a Don Barry 2011 Page 1
son of eight days shall be circumcised among you, every male child in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with silver of any stranger who is not of your seed. He that is born in your house, and he that is bought with your silver, must be circumcised. And My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. There is a 13 year gap between this chapter and the last one. {cf. 16:16 he was 86 and in17:1 he is now 99.} Project Hagar had taken its heavy toll on Abraham and his household. During this time we read of little or no spiritual progress, spiritual fruit, or spiritual fellowship. They were years of unhappiness and unrest for Abraham s household. These years taught Abraham the folly of acting on his own. In chapter 17 we are introduced to a new season. There is A NEW REVELATION FROM GOD. Vs. 1. Jehovah appeared to Abram I am almighty God. Don Barry 2011 Page 2
The Hebrew word used here is the word EI Shaddai. This is quite a familiar word for many of us, but it was the first time God had revealed Himself to anybody by that name. The idea of EI Shaddai is that God is enough, that He is sufficient, competent and all adequate. The word literally means, Many breasted. There s adequate nourishment, adequate supply. This was to Abraham a revelation of the source from which he was to receive all that he had been promised. It was as if God was saying to Abraham. You have been learning over, the last 13 years the total inadequacy of your own efforts. Now learn about me. I am EI Shaddai, the one who is sufficient to be able to do in you all the things I have promised. A NEW REQUIREMENT FROM GOD. Vs1. Walk before me and be blameless { KJV has perfect. } Don Barry 2011 Page 3
Obviously God is not asking Abraham to be perfect in the way we understand that word i.e. absolutely sinless. The word perfect, in the Hebrew is the word Tumiym. [Taw meem.} It s the word from which we get our word integrity. It has the idea of entire, full, complete, whole. Wholehearted, would be a good rendering of the word. In English the word integer, is a mathematical term that we use to denote a whole number as opposed to a fraction. It comes from the same root as integrity. Abraham s heart had been fractured. God was calling for it to be whole once again. It had undergone a disintegrating process; God wanted it integrated once again. Your dual allegiance will no longer be tolerated; you are to be fully mine. A NEW RESPONSE TO GOD. Vs 3. Abraham fell on his face Don Barry 2011 Page 4
It s a position of repentance. It s a posture of submission. It s a place of worship. In verses 4-9 God renews the covenant promises to Abraham. God changes their names to fit more fully with their calling. It was really a prophetic declaration over their lives. He changes Abraham s name in verse 5 and Sarah s in verse 15. Abram, which means, Exalted Father, is changed to Abraham which means, Father of a multitude. God does this by adding a letter to Abram. It s the chief letter of His own name. Abra {h} am. It s the sound that can only be uttered by an out breathing. God breathed into Abraham. God s breath always produces life. Don Barry 2011 Page 5
Sarai, which some scholars believe meant contentious, was changed to Sarah, which means, Princess. In verse 10 God introduces Abraham to the seal of the covenant. All of the covenants that God makes with men have three elements. 1. Promises of the covenant. 2. The blood of the covenant. 3. The seal of the covenant. The covenant that God made with Noah after the flood is an example of this pattern God promised- that He would never flood the earth again. Noah sacrificed sacrificial animals and shed their blood to ratify the agreement. God put a rainbow in the sky as the seal of the agreement. Don Barry 2011 Page 6
The same three elements are present in this covenant between God and Abraham. There was the promise of lands and an heir. There was the blood of the covenant as we saw in Genesis 15. Remember that the animals were killed in put in two piles and then God walked between the two piles. Then came the seal of the covenant circumcision. The Old Testament rite of circumcision is bewildering to many people. It s not that they don t understand what it means. Most people are well aware that circumcision is the removal of the foreskin from the male organ. It s rather that it seems a peculiar thing for God to have required as a sign of relationship with Him. Forgive my carnality but my first response if I had been Abraham would have been a very worrying question. Lord you said this was to be a sign; who do you intend showing this sign to? This had better be an issue between me and you. Don Barry 2011 Page 7
What does this have to do with us? What relevance can these strange rites have to us in the 21 st Century? Abraham is our father in the faith. We are called to follow in his footsteps. For us as New Testament believers, the physical rite of circumcision is obviously no longer incumbent upon us. There is however, a spiritual application here that we can learn from. Like Abraham we have entered into a covenant with God. It s the New Covenant that Jesus spoke of. Like all God s other covenants it s made up of three elements. There are the promises of forgiveness of sins, restored relationship and reinstated rulership with God. There is the blood of the covenant. It was shed by Jesus on Calvary s Cross. Then there is the seal of the covenant. What is the seal of this New Covenant? Consider these Scriptures. Don Barry 2011 Page 8
Ephesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Sprit in our hearts. I believe that the promised seal of the New Covenant is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Don Barry 2011 Page 9
The physical issues that circumcision dealt with in Abraham s life have a parallel, a spiritual application in our lives. What the physical knife dealt to with Abraham, the Holy Spirit will deal with in us. The knife of circumcision cut to the heart of three crucial issues in Abraham s life. The Holy Spirit will touch the same three issues in us as we open to Him. 1. To begin with the knife was laid to the center of his identity. The first words we speak when a child is born {At least they were the first words before the advent of the scan.} are those that identify the child s sex. It s a boy, or It s a girl. From the moment that the child emerges from the womb, its sex is its initial identity. Circumcision cut to the heart of Abraham s identity. Don Barry 2011 Page 10
The Holy Spirit will cut to the heart of the same issue with you and me. This happens irrespective of our physical gender. It s as if God is saying, I want to cut to the heart of those things that constitute your identity and to remove that which is superficial and to establish that which is real. Our identity as believers is established in Christ. It transcends our physical gender and relates to our life in Christ and who He is making us to be. However we live in a culture that seeks to shape and influence our identity in very different ways and according to very different standards. Its basis is outward appearance and values. How much money do you have? How do you dress? How socially acceptable are you? How handsome? How pretty? Are you clever, cute, smart, or stylish? Don Barry 2011 Page 11
James Dobson says that, beauty and brains are the gold and silver coins of human worth for most in our society. Our society is so permeated by this system that most of us grow up accepting its terms without question and are ground down by its evil. It s destructive and it s dominating. Even as believers we are too often inclined or tempted to allow our identity, our quests and our worth to be dictated by this world s demands. God has a different plan. He wants to cut to the core of who we really are. He wants us to realize our true identity as sons and daughters of the Most High God. The value system of God s family is very different from those of this worlds system. As we submit to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives He will cut away the dead habits, false values and wrong identity that we have allowed to be fused into our souls. Without the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit, we will Don Barry 2011 Page 12
not only struggle to know God; we will never understand who we are either. Many of us have accepted others assessment of our worth and have based our sorry lives on their pronouncements without ever questioning there validity. The Holy Spirit will cut to the heart of that. He wants us to live our lives under the blessing of what God has declared about our identity. 2. The second thing that happened in physical circumcision was that the knife was laid to the source of Abraham s productivity or his creativity. Obviously human beings have no greater power of creativity than procreation; begetting another life. Circumcision cut the member of the body through which new life would be begotten. This ancient rite spoke prophetically of how the Holy Spirit, the New Testament fulfillment of this ancient action, would come also to touch a people at the point of their creativity. Don Barry 2011 Page 13
God gives to us all gifts, creative gifts. These, in order to be truly effective, need to be brought under the Holy Spirit s touch. Some of us fear allowing God to cut into this point of our lives. We fear that somehow if we give them over to God He win cut them from us. To be blunt, and continuing the analogy, some of us think he is going to castrate us rather than circumcise us. We might acknowledge with our heads that God has given the gifts, yet we fear at a heart level that He now wants to strip us of them. We need to know that the submission of our creativity to the Father will only occasion His removal of the flesh, the excess, that actually prevents the gift from being all that He intends. 3. In the rite of circumcision the knife was placed at the most private part of the human anatomy. Don Barry 2011 Page 14
In like manner the Holy Spirit will cut right to the centre of our personal privacy. It s amazing how we think that we can invite Him into our lives and yet at the same time retain some secret closet in our souls. He will come and perform radical surgery on us, on every private corner of our hearts and attiiudes, our reservations, our self justifications, our tempers, areas of bitterness and anger, our lust, our jealousy and our criticism. Things that others would never know about or suspect of you, He knows and He cares enough to confront them and cut them from us. The Holy Spirit is the New Testament fulfillment of the ancient rite of circumcision. He s the seal of God on our lives. He wants to introduce us to the reality of spiritual circumcision; to help us discover our true identity, to release the source of our creativity and to reorder the centre of our privacy. Don Barry 2011 Page 15