03 The Circumcision and Naming of the Holy Child
III THE CIRCUMCISION AND THE NAMING OF THE HOLY CHILD
Circumcision was the first sacrament that ever was instituted in the Church, and Abraham and Ishmael were the first receivers of that immensely significant sacrament. Circumcision had exactly the same significance in the Old Testament that Baptism has in the New Testament. Only, circumcision was immensely more significant of the extent and the intensity of our sin and uncleanness, and of our universal and urgent need of the removal of all our sin and uncleanness. Our New Testament ordinance of baptism is the washing with water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and nothing could well be more significant than that. But the Old Testament ordinance was a washing with blood. No sacrament could possibly signify and seal more than our engrafting into Christ, and our engagement to be the Lord’s. But the Old Testament sacrament of circumcision represented, sealed, and applied all that in an immensely more poignant and impressive way.
It was an ordinance in Israel that every manchild must be circumcised on the eighth day. But this is not all ordinary manchild like all the other men children of the house of Abraham; this is not an Ishmael, nor even an Isaac. This is that Manchild of whom the angel spake to Mary: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." And the Son of God has no need for our circumcision, as all other children born of women have need. There is nothing unclean, either in His body or in His soul, for the circumcising knife to cleanse away. No remotest taint of our original and universal corruption has ever touched, or ever will touch, this Holy Thing. He will be in all points tempted like as we are, yet always without sin. He will never be drawn away of His own lust, and enticed. He will always and everywhere keep His garments clean. For He that is begotten of God keepeth Himself, and that wicked one toucheth Him not. Well may His name be called Wonderful! But the half of His wonderfulness has not yet been told. For He who knew no sin, and who never was to know sin, was already in His circumcision made sin for us. He was not so much as eight days in this world till he began to be numbered with transgressors. Mary’s firstborn son was a lamb without blemish and without spot, but before He was a week old, He began to bear the sins of many. Look at that Holy Thing but a span long and already made a sacrifice for sin and for uncleanness not His own! And as He began in the temple that day, so He continued every day to lead a life of pain, and shame, and blood-shedding, for us and for our children, till He finished on the cross the sin-atoning work His Father had given Him to do. And ever after that first day of His wounding for our transgressions, that Holy Thing bore in His body the marks of our redemption. As John Milton sings concerning the circumcision :- He who with all Heaven’s heraldry whilere Entered this world, now bleeds to give us ease.
Alas! how soon our sin
Sore doth begin His infancy to seize!
But, oh! ere long Huge pangs and strong Will pierce more near His heart. And as another sings:
Hath He marks to lead me to Him If He be my Guide? In His hands and feet are wound-prints And His side. But with all that we do not see the full manifoldness of circumcision till Paul, as usual, takes it up. Of all the prophets and all the apostles it is Paul who makes the most spiritual and the most impressive use of this most pungent of all divine ordinances. Speaking of himself and of his own spiritual experiences in one of his priceless autobiographic passages the apostle says--"Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews. But what things were gain to me, I counted loss for Christ." And beginning with that autobiographical and evangelical reference, Paul proceeds elsewhere and goes down to the real root and original intention of circumcision, both in the Old Testament economy, and then in Christ Himself, and then in us. Writing to the Romans, and having occasion to mention circumcision, he says this about it: "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." And to the Galatians, who were seeking to be justified by their being circumcised, the Apostle writes: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." And to the Colossians: "Beware lest any man spoil you after the traditions of men, and not after Christ. In whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands." Made without the hands of men, he means; but made with the hands and with the knives of the Holy Ghost. With all that, you will see, my brethren, how deep the knife of circumcision cuts, both in Abraham, and in Christ, and in ourselves. And you will justify the divine ordinance in Israel which was published abroad in these severe terms. "This is My covenant which ye shall keep, between Me and you, and your seed after you; every manchild among you shall be circumcised. And the uncircumcised manchild shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant." Every father in Israel, in the first days of that holy covenant, had to perform the ordinance of circumcision with his own hands on all his sons. Every father had to be the priest in his own house, on the pain of death. All of which is written for our learning, and for our imitation. For we who are fathers are first to see and to feel in ourselves the meaning and the need of all that cleansing which circumcision teaches and enjoins. Then we are to understand clearly and joyfully all that the circumcision of the Holy Child means, and all that it offers to us and to our children; and then we are to pray and work continually till the blood of His eighth day is sprinkled both on the bodies and on the souls of all our children, and at all their ages, from their first infancy unto their full manhood. We are to be like Sir Thomas Browne’s father, who used to kneel beside his child’s cradle and pray that the heart of his child might already, and always, be a temple of the Holy Ghost. And it was so. And it will be so to us, and to our children also, if we ask it.
But, even with all that, the whole of that great day’s work in the temple is by no means completed. Our homely-minded people are not so far wrong when they say that the minister is to give such and such a child his name on the day of his baptism. At any rate that was the way of it in ancient Israel. No child of Abraham ever got his name till after he was circumcised. As the first naming of John the Baptist shows us, and the first naming of Jesus Christ. "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, His name was called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." :"Now, nomen omen," says John Donne; "for scarce any man hath a name but that name is legal to him. His name always remembers him of some rules and laws of his actions." And again--"Nomina debita." Our names are debts that we owe to those who know our name. Every man owes to himself and to others the signification of his name, and of all his names. Every new addition of name, or of office, or of honor, lays a new debt and a new obligation on a man. I for one feel that the great preacher has done both his Master and me a great service in the way he has put the truth about our Lord in that fine sermon of his. To put an all-important truth in a fresh and unfamiliar way is to do us an immense service. And it is a quickening and a refreshing thing to me to be told that this new name of the Son of God lays Him under a new debt to me, over and above all His other debts, say, as a faithful Creator. This new name that the angel gave to Joseph and Mary to give to their Child on the day of His circumcision lays Him under this debt to me, to save me from my sins. “To save His people," as the scripture literally has it. Till the only doubt, the only question is--Am I one of His people? Does that limitation of His name shut me out, or does it open and let me in? That, my brethren, is the one question now for you and for me. Are we, ay or no, among His people? Well; we are, if we wish to be. We are; if we are willing to be. We are; if we are willing to be made willing to be. We are; if we are sincerely seeking, in any true sense, to be saved from our sins. Now let us be quite clear about that. Absolutely plain-spoken and straightforward about that with ourselves. For God is not mocked. Let us name to Him then at least one sin from which we would fain be saved on the spot. Even one, and all the rest will follow. Even one, to give reality and point to the text. Even one unclean thing. Even one iniquitous thing. Some one great sin that is past through the forbearance of God. But a sin that sometimes comes back on us with such a tremendous blow on our conscience. But more especially, what is your besetting sin at the present moment? It would be like cutting off your right hand, and plucking out your right eye, to have your besetting sin taken away. But it must be done. For it is better to enter into life hewn all over with the knives of purity and of truth and of self denial, than to face death and judgment as you now are. But though all that is true; this is rather the proper truth of the text. This, that whatever your past has been, and whatever your present is, in the matter of sin; and whatever your fear for the future, that name which the Son of God took to Himself in the temple that day; His best known and His best loved name, lays Him under an absolute obligation to save you from all your sins. He must deny both His circumcision and His circumcision name, and all His errand here, if He does not save you from all your sins. But He is not ashamed to bear that name, both on earth and in heaven, because He has never turned His back on any seeking sinner, and never will. This comes into my mind at this moment, and my own heart leaps up to receive it --That He is able and willing to save to the uttermost. So that, if you and I are the uttermost of all sinners; far out and away beyond all other sinners; I beyond you, and you beyond me; yet He is both able and willing to save both of us, and that from all our sins. But at the same time, I must take care not to exaggerate, or in any way over-state the truth, either to you or to myself. For His salvation from sin is strictly limited to His people. And then, even to them, there is this limitation also, to which they must all submit. He does not say just when, and just where, and just in what way, He will save us from all our sins. Times, and seasons, and instrumentalities, must all be left in His hand. Rome was not built in a day. Neither is our salvation, within and without, and from all our sins, finished in a day or in a year. But what of that, if only the thing is sure some day; some year. And there is nothing in heaven or on earth that is so sure. He has sworn, and He will perform it in His own time and in His own way. And till He performs it fully and finally His will is that we keep calling on His name continually; day and night, remembering ourselves and Him of His circumcision and our salvation name. We are always to call Him by this His best name, and not to faint till He avenges us speedily. For myself, I find these ways of calling continually on His name very consoling to my soul and in every way helpful. At one time I will hail Him in these words:
Jesus! Name of mercy mild, Given to the Holy Child When the cup of human woe First He tasted here below.
I read of His circumcision, and in imagination I place myself present at His circumcision, and find that that verse already begins to save me from my sins. And, then, thinking of you all when alone, and of all His people everywhere, I speak in your name and say this:
Jesus is the name we treasure, Name beyond what words can tell, Name of gladness, name of pleasure, Ear and heart delighting well:
Name of sweetness passing measure, Saving us from death and hell.
And, then this, I feel sure, is in your own mouth, and in your own heart all the day:
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear.
Dear Name! The Rock on which I build, My Shield and Hiding-Place, My never-failing Treasury, filled With boundless stores of grace.
Jesus! My Shepherd, Husband, Friend, My Prophet, Priest, and King, My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,-- Accept the praise I bring.
All you then who are His people; all you who would fain be found among His people--and who would not--dwell day and night upon every word of that; even as your sins dwell day and night in you. Lean your whole weight day and night upon His saving name. Make His saving name in all its debts and obligations to you, make it your prayer and your praise, absolutely without ceasing. And mix up His name with prayers and apostrophes of your own like this. O Lord Jesus! say. For the sake of that name that was given Thee at Thy circumcision, when Thy sin-cleansing blood was first shed for sinners; for the sake of that name that was written over Thy cross; that name which a multitude that no man can number have pled, and have never pled in vain, before the mercy-seat; for Thy name sake, Lord Jesus, save me from all my sins. For Thy name sake, pardon and cleanse away all mine iniquity, for it is very great.
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die! And shall He not avenge His own people, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.