Gods Sabbath

C IRCUMCISION

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qualify him to be the child of promise. Up until this time, Abram really believed that he had done a great work for God and that the Almighty fully accepted his devising. But the true child of promise could be born only if Abraham was brought to understand the real nature of the procedures he had followed, was deeply convicted of the error of those ways, repented of them with all his heart, and then covenanted with God to follow His ways and His alone. Until these changes had been effected, the true child could not appear. None of these procedures as such could actually bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise, but Abraham needed to follow them in order to clear the way for God to do what He had said He would. Before God introduced the rite of circumcision, Abraham had to accept the spiritual lesson behind it. The rite itself was in tended to be but a picture of the spiritual circumcision of the heart that had preceded it. At first Abraham resisted the Lord’s instructions. He was unable to see beyond the physical limita tions imposed by both his and Sarah’s ages. As he instead plead ed with God for Ishmael (see Genesis 17:18), he was in reality asking God to recognize and accept a system wherein people seek to build God’s kingdom for Him by trusting in their own ways. It was imperative that Abraham renounce those proce dures completely before he could see the promise fulfilled. There was no place for human devising and God could not enter into any concessions or compromises whatsoever, for only in God’s ways can true rest be found. In this confrontation, God was seeking to effect within Abra ham a change in convictions so profound that it would result in total renunciation of the procedures by which Ishmael had been given life. Instead He would form a covenant with the patriarch, which would confine Abraham and all those of his posterity who would remain faithful to it, to God’s ways alone. If such a change could be achieved and permanently established, the success of God’s work in the dethronement of sin and sinners was assured. Abraham’s Reluctance