“Is this blessing only for the circumcised,  then? Or is it also for the uncircumcised? For we say, Faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness. In what way, then, was it credited—while he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? It was not while he was circumcised, but uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while still uncircumcised. This was to make him the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, so that righteousness may be credited to them also. And he became the father of the circumcised, who are not only circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I don’t think I consciously remember a single Sunday school lesson before about sixth grade (and I only remember one from that year). But I do remember my third and fourth grade class quite well. Our teachers brought us Schwartz’s glazed donuts and Tang, and we sang Father Abraham most weeks. It was a silly Sunday school song whose motions we always did backwards such that we wound terribly dizzy by the end of it. But the point of the song was to teach a theologically rich spiritual truth that we find Paul espousing in this next part of his letter.

As we said a couple of days ago, Abraham loomed large in the worldview framework of Jews in the first century. Their being his children was the key to their relationship with God. God made the covenant promises to Abraham and his descendants. They had access to those promises by virtue of being his descendants. And the way they knew they were his descendants was because they (that is, the men) were all circumcised.

If someone were to start tinkering with that idea, they were messing with the source code of the Jewish people. They were making changes that could not easily or at all be undone. Naturally, what we find Paul doing here is messing with the source code.

In the last couple of verses, Paul borrowed a line from David in Psalm 32 to make a point about the incredible blessing God’s forgiveness is. More specifically, he made a point about what a blessing it is that this forgiveness is available (in Christ) not only to those who were part of “His people” and who were governed by the Law of Moses, but also to those who were not what the Jews generally understood to be Abraham’s children. They were lawless. But in Christ, God’s forgiveness was available to them anyway.

The point, though, was subtle. So, in this next section, Paul draws it out a bit. He draws it out by poking some at the Jewish background folks in his audience, challenging their core beliefs on the matter. Is this blessing of forgiveness something that is only available to the circumcised, that is those who are genetically Abraham’s children and who bore the mark of the covenant on their bodies? Or is it available more broadly than that?

In answer, Paul doesn’t try to argue on his own. Instead, he takes his audience right back to the text. Abraham was declared righteous in response to his faith in God. Paul established that earlier. It was still a challenging concept since it flew in the face of everything they had thought they knew about the biblical story, but they were starting to get their minds around it.

Yes, okay, Abraham was justified by faith. So what? This is where Paul blows them up. When was Abraham credited with righteousness, Paul asks? Genesis 15. Why? Okay, well, when was he given the sign of circumcision? Why does that matter? Just answer the question. Genesis 17. So wh…..aaaat??? That came second?!? Abraham was righteous before he was given the sign of circumcision? But how can that be? That would mean that circumcision doesn’t have anything to do with our standing before God! It would mean we’re not special just because we’re related to Abraham and have been circumcised.

God’s promise to Abraham had two parts to it. The first was that He was going to make his descendants into a great nation. The Jews tended to focus on that part. God Himself had decreed that they were going to be a great nation. In their collective minds they had achieved that under King David and King Solomon. That was the Golden Age of Israel that every faithful Jew longed to return to. They were independent. They were wealthy. They were militarily strong. They were ruled by a good and faithful leader (of course, David had some pretty major issues, but his theological assessment was positive because in spite of his failings, he just kept on seeking God from out of those ashes) who had kept the nation on a good and faithful course. For the ones who were still waiting on the Messiah to come (because of their ongoing rejection of Jesus as that man), when He did, He was going to restore them to that glory. They couldn’t imagine things being better than that.

But that was only part of the promise. The other part of the promise was that God was going to bless the world through Abraham’s descendants. Well, if the Jews – Abraham’s genetic descendants – tended to major on the first part, God’s major emphasis tended to be on the second. Through Abraham, He was building up a people through whom He could introduce Himself to the world, and through whom He could invite the world into a covenant relationship with Him, and through whom He could make His kingdom manifest so that anyone who desired could enter into it and live as they were always designed to live.

The thing is, God didn’t need Abraham’s genes to make this people, He needed His heart. That’s Paul’s point here. The children of Abraham who are heirs to God’s promise to him to make his descendants into a great nation who would bless the world are those people who willingly trust God and demonstrate that trust by obeying His commands. That is, they are a people defined by their faith, not their works.

Because of this, anybody can be a child of Abraham and an heir to his promise. Whether someone happens to share his genetic line or not, they can still be one of his children. Whether or not someone has the physical mark of his participation in God’s covenant promise to Abraham, they can still be a part of that promise because it was given before the physical sign of circumcision was instituted. Or, as Paul puts it, “And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while still uncircumcised. This was to make him the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, so that righteousness may be credited to them also.”

Now, this didn’t mean the Jews weren’t still a part of the promise. Both are included. “And he became the father of the circumcised, who are not only circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised.” In other words, circumcision is not the primary mark of participation in the promise. Faith is. Someone who bears the sign of circumcision but who doesn’t place his faith in God, isn’t a part of the promise just like someone who is uncircumcised and doesn’t place his faith in God isn’t a part of the promise. The people of the promise are those who put their faith in God just like Abraham did whether they are circumcised or not.

That song we sang back in Sunday school when I was little went like this: “Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s all praise the Lord.” Then you started wiggling appendages around in what amounted to a silly dance. And I just realized they were teaching us to dance in Sunday school in my Baptist church when we were growing up. Those rebel teachers! More importantly than that, they were teaching us what Paul was trying to teach here. Anyone can be a child of Abraham. Man, woman, child, rich, poor, red, yellow, black, white (they’re all precious in His sight), none of that makes any difference to God in terms of being in a right relationship with Him. There’s only one thing: faith. Faith in Jesus as Lord. He takes care of the rest.