Anti-Semitism is rarely out of the headlines these days, social media are awash with vitriol from one side or another \u2013 yet this ancient hatred is a symptom, not a primary cause. The multitude of racists who spread their poison never suspect that they are mere pawns in the service of the arch-Racist whose target is not only Jews, but the entire human race. There is only one racist, Satan \u2013 and only one solution to his genocidal intentions for the planet. The Bible calls it \u2018One New Man\u2019\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a Jew writing, in the first century, to non-Jews: \u201c\u2026remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called \u201cthe uncircumcision\u201d by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands \u2013 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.<\/em>\u201d (Ephesians 2:11-13) Nor are these the words of a Jew who was, by nature, conciliatory and broad-minded. For years, his zeal for religious purity made him the violent persecutor of the first Christians. He saw these \u2013 predominantly Jewish \u2013 disciples as enemies of God, criminals who were undermining his own nation. He watched them die as they cried out for God to forgive their killers, he cast men and women into prison and advanced to the point where he had a roving commission \u2013 and military escort \u2013 to \u2018seek out and destroy<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 every last enclave of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His generous warmth towards the Greek-speaking Christians of Ephesus represents perhaps the greatest about-turn in any man\u2019s biography: (see Galatians 1:23) His God-breathed thirteen letters which are the backbone of the New Testament are. solid proof that the solution to every form of racism, bigotry and unreasoning hatred has been around for at least 2,000 years. I say \u201cat least\u201d, because the timeless, indiscriminate love of God for all races was on display even before Jesus Christ walked the earth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abraham, of whom God said: \u201cmy<\/strong> friend\u201d was plucked out of Babylon\u2019s idolatrous culture and given an unconditional covenant in which the Creator promised that this first Hebrew man would bring divine blessing to people of every culture: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.<\/em>\u201d (Genesis 12:3) If prejudice, bigotry and \u2018hate speech\u2019 are features of modern life, they did not originate with Abraham\u2019s faith or his people or his God\u2026 Quite the opposite.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, we are not surprised to find that, when God saved His chosen people from famine in Egypt, He saved the Egyptians too \u2013 and had a Hebrew slave promoted to Pharaoh\u2019s number two to make it happen! Then we discover that, when the only safe place in Egypt on Passover night was indoors under the blood of God\u2019s lamb, provision was made for non-Jews to share in God\u2019s salvation \u2013 but there were conditions: \u201cIf a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.<\/em>\u201d (Exodus 12:48-49) \u2013 and, would you believe it? That principle of circumcision still pertains today! Now Christians\u2026 Don\u2019t panic! Don\u2019t burn your copy of Sword! We still believe Galatians 5:6! All will (I hope) become clear below\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did Saul, the religious extremist become Paul, the self-forgetting servant of all humanity? In his own words: \u201cone new man<\/em>\u201d \u2013 this, he explains is the great accomplishment of Jesus Christ, a victory so sweeping that the ancient Jew-Gentile antipathy is resolved at a stroke in the body of one Man \u2013 murdered by sinners, but vindicated and resurrected by God and eternally alive to reconcile all races, first to God and then to each other. Great News! But is that it? Did the Son of God leave his glory above, suffer the humiliation of a mortal existence, murderous persecution by the religious establishment and, ultimately, the unjust, tortured death of a crucified criminal just to help Jews and Gentiles \u2018play nice\u2019? Or is this racial harmony He has made possible merely the fragrant by-product of a much greater plan? Apostle John summed up what the Twelve had \u2018seen and heard\u2019 with the minimal statement: \u201cThe reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil<\/em>\u201d (1 John 3:8) \u2013 surely then, that would involve\u2026 reversing the Fall? Well\u2026 yes it would\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s just check\u2026 are we forcing the text of Ephesians here? It\u2019s irrefutably clear that, when Paul introduces the concept of \u2018one new man\u2019, he\u2019s speaking of Christ offering Himself as the representative of all sinners \u2013 Jew and Gentile \u2013 terminating sin and providing both groups with equal access to the Father by the One Spirit: \u201cFor he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility<\/em>.\u201d (Ephesians 2:14-16). Paul has been totally transformed and turned around by his encounter with Jesus. All 4 former earthly prejudices are now polar opposites to the extravagant love of Christ which \u201ccompels\u201d the apostle to suffer relentless violent persecution to save his opponents with the good news of Jesus Christ. He is so amazed at the grace he has been given by the Jesus he had persecuted that he is no longer amazed that God\u2019s extravagant love also extends to his enemies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know, I know\u2026 you\u2019ll need to re-read those last two paragraphs because you\u2019re still thinking about that circumcision thing. OK, let\u2019s be brave and think it through\u2026 First, circumcision was not given to Judaism, it was given to Abraham. It was given as a sign of God\u2019s unconditional covenant. Nothing was required of Abraham except that he would trust God to do all He had promised. It was given when Ishmael was thirteen years old and Abraham and Sarah needed to learn that God did not need their help or their surrogate \u2018make do\u2019 plans. Ninety year-old Sarah was going to be a proper mum and Abraham was going to be a dad in his hundredth year \u2013 no science\u2026 just the power of God! No wonder they called the child Isaac (\u2018laughter\u2019) !<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isaac’s father proved worthy of the covenant sign when he reasoned from God’s faithfulness to the probability of resurrection for his son should that be the only way for God to keep His promises (Hebrews 11:9) \u2013 final proof that Abraham would father not a \u2018Master Race\u2019 (hellish parody) but the \u2018Mastered Race\u2019 \u2013 the people whose God is the Lord, with no competitor. In his God-orchestrated helplessness, he trusted the Helper. When God commanded the circumcision of Joshua’s army, He waited until any possible retreat was cut off by the flooding Jordan river – inside enemy territory! Thus, an Israelite army was prepared for victory by becoming impotent and vulnerable unless they were shielded and empowered by God \u2013 confident self-reliance in their military prowess was not an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a sign of God’s covenant, circumcision is a disabling initiation. The covenant relationship is one of divine omnipotence meeting man’s impotence, but the mark in the flesh has always called for a corresponding circumcision of the heart – the heart that embraces helplessness because confidence is not in self but in God who keeps His promises – especially when it seems impossible<\/strong>. This circumcised heart is a divine requirement for this life and a qualification for the life to come. The clear proof of this is Calvary. “While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly<\/em>” (Romans 5:6); it was when we were “dead in trespasses and sins” \u2013 and self-evidently incapable of saving ourselves \u2013 that God “made us alive together with Christ<\/em>” (Ephesians 2:1,5); it was “while we were enemies” that “we were reconciled to God”<\/em> (Romans 5:10). No room here for boasting, far less ‘DIY salvation’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is surely significant that, when Jesus promised “one flock and one shepherd<\/em>” He depicted us as creatures who, apart from Our Shepherd, are utterly helpless, vulnerable, silly, prone to wander and incapable of getting ourselves out of trouble. “Sheep without a shepherd<\/em>” invoke His compassion, not His condemnation \u2013 He is the ‘help of the helpless<\/em>‘. The uncircumcised heart is self-reliant, independent, in disagreement with Proverbs 3:5-6 and John 15:5, generally disconnected from spiritual reality, unconvinced of its ‘sheepish’ state. The Last Adam’s race (Jesus, the One New Man is the firstborn of one new humanity, Jew and Gentile) has discovered the \u2018strength of weakness<\/em>\u2019 because human \u2018strength\u2019 has been exposed by God’s grace for the fiction that it is. This new humanity glories in every human weakness that provides opportunity for the perfect expression of God’s power. These are the people of the circumcised heart who alone will populate the New Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, are we saying, after all, that this Jew\/Gentile church has replaced Israel in God\u2019s plans and affections? Not even close. What we are saying is that, just as no foreigner could eat of the Passover without accepting the covenant sign of circumcision (confessing his own helplessness to keep himself alive), neither will any Jew ever be a true Israelite without a circumcised heart.<\/strong> Long before the time of Christ, Israel\u2019s prophets bravely thundered their warning that Israelites must share Abraham\u2019s faith, not just his surgery: \u201cBehold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh \u2013 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.<\/em>\u201d (Jeremiah 9:25-26, see Romans 2:28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jews are not saved by Moses and Gentiles by Jesus. Moses agreed with Jeremiah: \u201cCircumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn<\/em>.\u201d (Deuteronomy 10:16) The astonishing reconciliation which Paul preached takes place at the cross of Israel\u2019s Messiah \u2013 and on no other ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For that \u2018life from the dead<\/em>\u2019 (Romans 11:15) to happen on earth which Paul prophesied, Israelites \u201cwill look on him whom they have pierced<\/em>\u201d (Zechariah 12:10) and, just like fire-breathing Saul on the Damascus Road, their hearts will be instantly circumcised, Abraham\u2019s unconditional trust in God will flood Abraham\u2019s nation and the Lion of Judah will rule the nations from David\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meantime\u2026 we (believing Jew and Gentile) must learn to \u201cboast all the more gladly of [our] weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon [us]\u201d (2 Corinthians 12:9). The world needs urgently to see the confident faith of the Mastered Race.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abraham was circumcised in two places. That\u2019s why his hope is the answer to anti-Semitism and every form of racism \u2013 is yours? Anti-Semitism is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[53],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ancient hatred, eternal antidote<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Amazed enough to love<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Sheepish\u2019 is good\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n