ROMANS 2
3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Jewish Responsibility
"Will all the Jews that ever lived be raised from the dead, simply because they lived under the law" (Rom. 2:12–16)?
Alter the phrase "ever lived" to "lived under the law," and Paul's answer is,
"as many as have sinned in the law" (or 'under law' - RV), shall be judged by the law, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ."
To the same effect the words
"who will render to every man according to his deeds—to the Jew first and also the Gentile."
Again, says he,
"there is glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile."
Again, he asks,
"Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles?" "Yes," says he, "of the Gentiles also."
Now, bearing in mind the resurrection-signification of the phrase "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob" (Luke 20:37), it is not difficult to see, that the phrase "God of the Jews" (who were under law to God), and the phrase "God of the Gentiles" (who are under law to Christ—1 Cor. 9:21), involves equally the resurrection of both classes.
The resurrection of the Jews, both good and bad, is plainly taught in the words
"There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out" (Luke 14:28).
The fact that the prophets, who lived under the law will be raised, is evidence that there is to be a resurrection of the Jews who lived under the law. This Paul believed before his conversion, as did also the Jews generally, with the exception of the Sadducees; for the apostle speaks of himself as having
"hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust," which, says he, "they themselves also allow" (Acts 24:15).
Yes, their being under the law, and in the case of pre-Mosaic times under the promises, constitutes the ground of their resurrection-responsibility.
"He that receiveth not my word," said Jesus, "hath that which judgeth him: the word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day."
"This shows," says Dr. Thomas," that judgment by the word is to be in the day of resurrection: concerning which Paul saith,
"as many as have sinned without laws shall perish without laws; and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged through law in the day when the Deity shall judge the secret things of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel" (Eureka 3:671).
With regard however to times of blindness, such as that which has "happened to Israel" since the disestablishment of the Mosaic economy, or times of word-famine (Am. 8:11, 12), such as the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew: of these times, it is less possible to speak with certainty, with regard to the question of resurrection responsibility.
We know that God winks at times of ignorance (Acts 17:30); a fact however that suggests on the other hand, that times, of light, law, and knowledge, are times of responsibility, to Jew and Gentile alike.
The Christadelphian, Aug 1889
4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Now, beloved reader, Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the good things of his mercy we have brought up herein, and say if they are not of peerless import. Are not endless life and good days, boundless riches, honour, and eternal glory in a kingdom of God's establishment upon the earth, more to be desired than all the world can give you now?
Can you be of sane mind and despise all these riches of goodness? Can you be rational and self-possessed? But if you despise them not, but "believe on God," that is, be fully persuaded that what he has promised he is able to perform, and will do it, will you not likewise be willing to make any sacrifice to obtain them?
If you were till a certain time devoted to the world and the enjoyment of the flesh, but came afterwards to believe in these promises with an honest and good heart, or as men say, "sincerely," would not your views of things present and future have undergone a radical change?
Would you not cease to set your affections on earthly things; would not your affection rather be transferred to the things contained in that "mercy kept for thousands?" Yea, verily. And would you not have been led to this change of views, affection, and will by the goodness of God exhibited in the testimony of his holy prophets? Even so; and you would then be a practical illustration of the Bible sentiment that "it is the goodness of God that leadeth to repentance."
God's goodness leads to repentance. It leads believers to place themselves in such a relation to the truth, that "repentance unto life" may be "granted unto them." The goodness of God is like to choice and goodly wares exhibited in a bazaar for sale. Their goodliness attracts the attention of passengers, and leads them to desire to possess them. The merchant grants their desire on certain conditions. They accept the terms, and receive the right of property in them; and he promises to put them in possession of them at an appointed time.
The goodness of God which leads to repentance is exhibited in the gospel of the kingdom, and no where else; for this gospel is the grand theme of the word of God contained in the scriptures, old and new: and because it is displayed in that royal proclamation, therefore, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles before their Lord's crucifixion, went through the towns and cities, and country parts of Judea,
"preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, saying, Repent; for the Majesty of the heavens is arrived."
The kingdom and arrival of its king were preached to lead those who believed it to repentance. The goodness of God set forth in the doctrine of the kingdom was preached also after the resurrection, to lead men to repentance, that they might be made meet for its inheritance; but the motive thereto, founded on the personal presence of the king, was not repeated.
It could not be; for "the Majesty of the heavens" had departed into a far country. The apostles no longer said: "Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" but,
"Repent; because God hath appointed a day in which he will rule the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance to all in that he hath raised him from the dead"
—in other words,
"Repent; because the Majesty of the heavens, who hath departed, will come again to rule the world in righteousness."
This is now the glad tidings of the kingdom for repentance unto life.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Apr 1853
7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
A man who has once fairly mastered and accepted the fact that the life we now live is a short-lived affair, is much more likely to be dutiful towards God, and kind and patient with all men, than the man whose mind turns only on present matters.
... The effect of such a recognition of truth must be felt by every one; it inclines us to look at life in a serious way, and to enquire which is the best way to spend it. There is but one answer of wisdom to this enquiry.
Fear God; hope in his mercy; do his commandments. Patiently continue in this, the only line of true well-doing, to the end, and thou shalt see in the end of it light and gladness, strength and wisdom, glory, honour, and immortality.
Seasons 1.99
8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
This judgment is in "the time of the dead"—that is, the time of the awaking of the dead "that they should be judged"—not of those who, having no understanding, "shall not rise," but have passed away as the beasts that perish; but of those who, notwithstanding their contact with "the light that is come into the world," loved darkness rather than light—and who, having heard the words of Christ as the acknowledged words of Christ and of God, and having rejected them practically in refusing to walk in accord with them, will be "judged by them in the last day."
These are the solemn teachings of Christ and the apostles. The contrary doctrine is based upon too narrow a construction of "covenant-relationship." This relationship is more an affair of benefit than of accountability.
Outside the covenant, there can be no eternal life; but everything shows that men need not be inside that covenant to be the objects of His righteous anger and punishment. We must not overlook the wide proprietorship of the Deity in all His works. If "the cattle upon a thousand hills" are His, much more the teeming millions of Adam's race. He is the "God of the spirits of all flesh," as Moses declared him to be.
"All souls are his," as he Himself said by Ezekiel, "the soul of the son and the soul also of the Father." If He had not spoken to them, their being His would have done no more for them than it does for the beasts that perish; but He has spoken to them in their cast-off condition, and though few of them know the fact or are in illuminated relation with the fact, it does not lessen the terrible import of the fact to those who cast it knowingly aside and live indifferently to it as if man were his own maker and God's claims on Him were nothing.
The Christadelphian, P18 - 1894
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
àIt is a terrible thing to be involved in public or private calamity of any kind; but what mortal experience of evil can equal the misfortune of those who are ordered to depart from the presence of Christ with the wailing multitude, who will appeal in vain to a clemency which they despised in the days of grace, and who leave him for a life of vagrancy and destitution to end their days in a dishonoured grave?
It is looked upon as the most calamitous of human experiences to sink in poverty, neglect, and be the victim of painful and incurable disease; but what lot can compare with the portion of those who awake from the slumbers of ages (in many cases) to find themselves strangers in a strange time, and to receive the due reward of their deeds in the "tribulation and anguish" that will be decreed to "every soul of man that doeth evil," in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus?
There is a time for everything. There is a time to look these solemn eventualities of the future in the face. We naturally seek relief from the effect they produce in our mind. The only safe relief lies in the remembrance that for the obedient-
"God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him,"-
And that this salvation, when conferred, means just the reverse of all the evil conditions that will befall the rejected: honour from God in the presence of a multitude of admiring friends; physical and mental capacity of the utmost strength and sweetness in the bestowment of an incorruptible nature that will never wear out, but manifest the brightness and joy of life for evermore; a place in the exalted community of the friends of God who, after these times of trial and states of evil, will be placed in possession of the earth in power and glory, and immortality. It may well be said-
"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city."
Bro Roberts - The Terror of the Lord
Questions as to the Resurrection of Rejectors
Is a man responsible who is not under the law of Christ?
Answer.—If the light has come to him—he knowing it to be such—and he reject it, preferring the darkness, he is responsible to it.
Proof: "This is the (ground of) condemnation that light is come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light."—(John 3:19.) "He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him. The words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.—(John 12:48.) "Preach the gospel to every creature; . . . he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned."—(Mark 16:15–16),
when Christ comes to take
"vengeance on them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 1:9), and he is not the judge of the living only, but the dead also.—(Rom. 14:9.)
Such are they who
"dispise the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering . . . treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;"
when there shall be to those "who do not obey the truth, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile, . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."—(Rom. 2:4, 5, 8, 10.)
Consequently, hearing Paul reasoning on "judgment to come," Felix trembled.—(Acts 24:25.)
The Christadelphian, Aug 1873
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
àEvidently it refers to those who are commanded by God to do anything of a definite nature, and who, by virtue of the fact that they hear and comprehend, are "bound to obey."
...Many of the Jews died without having in any way comprehended the divine purpose; having wandered out of the way of understanding, will "remain in the congregation of the dead," although in a technical sense they sinned under the Mosaic law. The sense which men sinned in the law becomes evident when we take all the facts into consideration...
...The apostle James says,
"To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
....All sin who do things contrary to God's law, but when it is simply in ignorance they are not held accountable. Without understanding they are simply like the beasts, and perish without law. But those who know to do good and do it not, or do evil while fully recognising what God requires, are enlightened transgressors, and may, like Cain, be called to account for their misdeeds...
(Cain ignored the Law which required blood-shedding animal sacrifice).
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
All divine commands, to whomsoever they are addressed, bring those who hear under moral obligation to obey. Thus the Ninivites, to whom God spoke through the prophet Jonah, became especially responsible to divine judgment, and they only saved themselves from overthrow by hearkening to Jonah's testimony, and turning from their evil way....
The Christadelphian, March 1896
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law [of Moses], do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
The Gentiles who have not the law - Rom. 2: 14–15:
"When the Gentiles which have not the law, do, by nature, the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves."
There was a class of Gentiles, in Paul's day, who did by nature—that is, by the new nature implanted by the truth—the things prescribed by the law, though they were not under the law. On this point, Paul says,
"The whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Gal. 5:14).
Covering those who lived under this rule, he said that
"the rightousness of the law was fulfilled in them who walked not after the flesh but after the spirit" (Rom. 8:3).
These he also describes in the very place where the question arises, as "doers of the law," in contrast to the disobedient Jews as mere "hearers of the law," and he says it is the doers that "shall be justified" (Rom. 2:13). Consequently, it is justified persons he is speaking of when he speaks of "the Gentiles which have not the law"—justified Gentiles in the ecclesia, who obtained their justification by the faith of the gospel "without the deeds of the law," though in themselves working out the righteousness of the law.
They were not barbarian Gentiles or Gentiles in general—not the children of darkness, but the children of light—"who show the work of the law written in their hearts"—which benighted Gentiles do not.
The enlightened state of those of whom Paul is speaking is shown by his recognition of their conscience as a standard by which they accused or excused one another. This is not the attitude or habit of "heathen" Gentiles. The only Gentiles to whom it could apply are those whom Paul had before his mind when contrasting their obedience with the disobedience of the Jews against whom he was writing.
The Christadelphian, Oct 1889
16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
Resurrection and judgment
....has been thoroughly exhausted in the publications now in circulation, viz., Eureka, Anastasis, Catechesis, Twelve Lectures, and back Nos. of the Ambassador. Nevertheless, we should have no objection to write "a small tract" for circulation among the class you mention, if we had that free play of capital necessary for the effective conduct of a private, cheap, book-publishing enterprise. The want of this imposes a check. We are obliged, just at present, to pull up.
—As to the re-immersion of those who, at their first immersion, believed in immortal emergence from the grave, such has taken place in several instances, in Britain. It has been the spontaneous act of the individuals themselves, prompted by a desire to put their standing in Christ beyond the doubt which they felt to exist on this point.
It is not exacted by fellow-believers, where the judgment was originally recognised in their apprehension of the scheme of the truth. The fact that Jesus will
"judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom"
is part of the gospel.—(Rom. 2:16.) Where this was unknown at baptism, there is a flaw which an earnest man would, of his own accord, be anxious to set right, and which brethren in fellowship would desire to be removed.
A man, however, may have known it and believed it, without knowing the details. Like yourself, he may have believed in the judgment without having considered that the dead must be in an unglorified state prior to its occurrence.
There is such a thing as growing in knowledge. Union with Christ in baptism is predicated upon faith in the testimony concerning him, as the sin-bearer, priest, judge, and king of Israel, and not on exhaustive knowledge of details, which would involve the anomaly of a new-born babe appearing in the full stature of manhood.
When there is a reception of the truth in its essential outlines, baptism is efficacious for union with Christ, introducing a man to a position in which it is expected he will
"add to his faith knowledge," and "go on unto perfection."
The Christadelphian, Sept 1870
17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,
à The Jew -- and rightly so -- condemned the vile abominations and superstitions of the learned and "modern" Gentile: the so-capable Roman, the scientific and philosophic Greek. But the Jew did not see the true picture. It is easy to see the faults of others. They (v. 17) rested in the Law of Moses, and made their boast of God.
Naturally speaking, the Jew had reason to boast. They had a holy, just, and good national Law, direct from the hand of God, that is still today -- 3,500 years after it was given -- not only unsurpassed but completely unapproached by any of man's tinkering, ever-changing, jigsaw of special interest legislation.
Israel was given a pure and beautiful religion and national form of joyful, ennobling worship; a rigid code of cleanliness and morality, wisely and necessarily enforced with the death penalty to prevent festering corruption; no permanent ownership of the land; no interest charges (the root of all social injustice and oppression); no jails (tax-supported crime factories); debts worked out by honest labour with a six-year limit and a guaranteed generously-underwritten new start; one year in every seven a complete rest and rejoicing in worship of God; every fifty years an entire new national beginning for everyone on a fair and equal basis, wiping the whole slate of accumulated inequality.
Man has never dreamed of anything like this, and he could not make it work if he did. But this glorious national law was underwritten by God Himself, and guaranteed to work: no disease, no poverty, no fear or insecurity -- IF they would do their part.
And the Jew had a wonderful 2,000-year history of the Almighty God of heaven manifesting Himself to and working with their ancestors as His special people above all others on earth.
No wonder the Jew despised the Gentile, with their hodgepodge legislation all in favour of the powerful, just like today; and their hobgoblin pagan Platonic superstition, just like today.
But the Jew forgot that where much is given, much is required
Bro Growcott - BYT 1.11
18 And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;
19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which [thou O Jew] hast the form [the pattern, (morphosis) ] of knowledge and of the truth [ I am the truth.—John 14:6.] in the law.
àHeb. 8:3–5.—Priests offering gifts and sacrifices according to the law, serve for a typical representation (impodeigma), and adumbration (skia) of heavenly things, according as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle; for, saith he:
"See thou make all things after the pattern (typou), showed to thee in the Mount."
Heb. 9:8, 9.—The first tabernacle was a similitude (parabole) for the time then present, in which were offered gifts and sacrifices.
Heb. 9:19–23.—It was necessary that the typical representation (ta hypodeigmata) of things in the heavens should be purified with blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool, and hyssop, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Heb. 9:19, 24.—The holy places made with hands are the antitypes (antitipa) of the true.
Heb. 11.—The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
Col. 2:16, 17.—Meats, drinks, holydays, new moons, and sabbaths, are an adumbration of things to come, but the body (soma, casting the shadow) is of the Christ.
Gal. 4:3, 5.—The law—the elements of the world—ta stoikeia tou kosmou.
Rom. 3:21, 22.—But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, through faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe.
Rom. 7:14.—The law is holy, spiritual,—(5:16; ) good (1 Tim. 1, 8.)
Gal. 3:24.—The law was our schoolmaster to Christ.
Psalm 119:18.—Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.
Bro Thomas
The Christadelphian, June 1873
The Law a shadow of good things to come
àWe know what is testified of Christ in simplicity and fulness and truth. We need not to grope for the light in the midst of shadows. Nevertheless, the shadow being the rude prophecy of the substance it is interesting to trace the correspondence between the one and the other--not for information but for edification.
...we must not limit the substance to the individual Christ. Though applicable to him in the first instance, it comprehends every accepted constituent of the multitudinous Christ. We must remember that the individual Christ is but the head of a body, and that the body and the head are one; and that the full purpose and manifestation of Christ is not realised till this whole community with head and body--Bridegroom and Bride---are in the immortal occupation of the earth to the glory of God the Father.
Law of Moses Ch 13
Constitution of the Kingdom
àA nation requires religion, laws, and Government for its well-being. Israel being God's nation, he only could of right confer them sovereignly upon it. He gave the Tribes their religion, their civil institutions, and their governors, which he constituted by a Covenant, styled the Old Covenant, because he intended to supersede it by an amended Covenant, called the New.
The New Covenant grows out of the promises made to Abraham concerning the everlasting possession of the land by the nation under Christ. The things of this Covenant are matters of faith and hope to Israel, and "the called," from Abraham, till Christ shall reign over the Twelve Tribes in the land for ever, when they will become matters of fact.
The things of the Abrahamic Covenant were peculiarly, and in a few years after him, exclusively the Hope of the descendants of Jacob, among whom, when in Egypt, transgressions began to prevail. They served the gods of Egypt, and did evil—Josh. 24:14.
Because of these transgressions, the Mosaic Law was added (Gal 3:19.) to "the Hope of the Covenant," and sacrifice; which Covenant was of no practical force in national affairs, because the Mediatorial Testator had not come and had not died.—Heb. 9:16, 17.
The Mosaic Law or Covenant, was designed for the instruction of the nation in the things pertaining to its hope, as well as for the organization and regulation of its affairs as the kingdom of God.
The law was their schoolmaster until Christ, the promised Seed of the Covenant, came.—Gal. 3:24; and contained
"within it the form or representation of the knowledge and of the truth."—Rom. 2:20.
When the time comes to place the nation of Israel under the New Covenant of the Kingdom, the representative things will have been removed, and "the knowledge and the truth" will alone remain.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1851
21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
The eighth commandment
àThe commandment is a recognition of personal possession as the basis of society. No other basis can be conceived as a practical one. If the sum total belonged to all, as in the schemes of socialism, there would be no scope for individual character and responsibility, and human character would dwarf to a workhouse level. If nothing were allowed to belong to any, each would take and keep by force what he could get, and the conflict of individual graspings would reduce life to a chaos and the world to a desert.
The simple but wise and powerful law that each man shall have the right to possess what he can lawfully acquire, modified by those other laws that require him to consider his neighbour and to contribute to the well-being of the whole, is the sure basis of social order and civilized human life. It only requires to be regulated by infallible and just authority to make the earth an abode of joyful life. This will be realized in the Kingdom of God and not before.
Law of Moses Ch 7.
24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
àThis is one reason of their restoration. God proposes to avert the dishonour of His name by their national recovery:
"I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them: and the heathen shall know that I am Yahweh, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before your eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen," etc.
If the declaration of Yahweh's coming purpose stopped here, there would be a certain amount of moral confusion which would interfere with the comfort of the prospect. We should feel it strange that a wicked nation should be brought together merely to stop the taunts of Gentile nations, and produce an adequate recognition of the greatness of Yahweh among them. But there is no room for such discomfort.
It is a characteristic of all divine ways that more than one purpose is served by the same instrumentality. Yahweh's declaration by Ezekiel goes on to say,
"A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you"
...Here is the nation in an humbled and reformed condition after restoration. There are frequent glimpses of this in the prophets. Isaiah speaking of the same era of regeneration, says (Isa. 60:21):
"Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever."
The means by which this great national change is to be effected is revealed in other parts. Yahweh will
"give them pastors according to his own heart, who shall feed them with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:15).
These pastors are the twelve disciples raised from the dead (Matt. 19:28), and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets, the glorious hierarchy of the kingdom of God (Luke 13:28-29; 20:35-36).
Under such leadership, aided with the latter-day and bountiful outpouring of the Spirit of God on all flesh, Israel will soon be brought to the glorious condition depicted. Some will prove incorrigible, but these will be weeded out: for it is written,
"I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain. I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth" (Zeph. 3:11-13).
Seasons 1.87.
29 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.
àNo uncircumcised person was permitted to be a member of Abraham's family. Home-born, or purchased, slaves, as well as sons, were to be alike circumcised, or else to be cut off; for he that was uncircumcised on the eighth day after the first circumcisions were instituted, or not at all, had broken the Lord's covenant.
This was a great calamity; for none but circumcised persons can inherit the promises. This may startle; but it is strictly true. It will however be remembered that true circumcision is of the heart. Circumcision of the flesh is but an outward sign of Abraham's circumcision of heart; and everyone who would inherit with faithful Abraham must be circumcised of heart likewise.
When he was circumcised of heart his faith in God was imputed to him for remission of sins that were past. His former idolatry, &c., was forgiven, and the body of the sins of his flesh put off.
Now, a man believing what Abraham believed with the same effect on his disposition and life, is also circumcised of heart, when, in putting on Christ, he is
"circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the circumcision of Christ,"
performed on the eighth day according to the law. In putting on Christ, his faith is counted to him for righteousness as Abraham's was. "The body of the sins of his flesh" is cut off. The foreskin of his heart is circumcised, and he is the subject of "circumcision in the spirit;" and his praise, though not of men, is pronounced of God (Rom. 2:28).
... the immersion of a man of the same faith and disposition as Abraham's is connected with circumcision I have shown; to such a man immersion into the glorious name is the token of his justification by faith, as circumcision was to Abraham. It is indeed a substitute for circumcision of the flesh, but the accompaniment also of circumcision of the heart; and as all of Abraham's faith were to, be cut off from his people who were not circumcised in flesh, so all of his faith now will be cut off who are not immersed; for immersion is the appointed, and only appointed, means of putting on the circumcision of Jesus Christ by which the body of the sins of the flesh are put off (Col. 2:11,13).
Elpis Israel ii.2.