Lesson 29: Our Old Life was Cut Off at Calvary and We are Free
Question 1
Marco Polo of Mike’s teaching: Monday 26th July 2021
“Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace”
Galatians 5:2-4 BSB
“Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Genesis 17:14 ESV
"When you came to Christ, you were 'circumcised,' but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision - the cutting away of your sinful nature.”
Colossians 2:11 NLT
“Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.” So that place has been called Gilgal to this day.”
Joshua 5:9 NLT
“Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort,”
Philippians 3:2-3 NLT
“Your old sinful self that lived in bitterness and unforgiveness, the person that put ‘’you first, that is what He cut off, the ‘old you’ was circumcised at the cross.
There is a most powerful picture/ illustration …In Joshua chapter 5, all the Israelites, the males who had been brought out of Egypt were circumcised. But none of those born in the wilderness after they came out of Egypt were circumcised. So, on the way to the promised land, God took all those males to a place called Gilgal, and there Joshua 5:9 says they circumcised every male, piling up in a heap all their flesh. Verse 9 says:
“Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.” So that place has been called Gilgal to this day.” Joshua 5:9 NLT
At Gilgal, they had the shame of their pasts cut off and rolled away. They had their identity as slaves circumcised from them. They could look at that hill of flesh and it would mean their freedom. The Hebrew word ‘Gilgal’ means ‘to roll away.’ They had their shame, their past, their identity as slaves rolled away from them. The Greek counterpart is ‘Golgotha’, ‘the hill of the cross’. This is the place where God cut off your sinful self. Your identity as a slave was circumcised at the hill of the cross and it was rolled away from you. Look at that hill of flesh. The cross of Christ. Look at it and see your identity as a sin slave removed from you. You now are a new creation. You have a new identity. As you believe what you see happening at the cross, the spirit of God makes your circumcision real, your new identity real in your heart.
I would just urge you to say out loud: “Jesus circumcised me at the cross. My old life was cut off and discarded and I am free!
…We believers are the true circumcision! We, believers, are the true Sabbath-keepers. We, believers, are the true law keepers. Why? Because Jesus did it for us and we did it in Him. Therefore, we rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in our own human effort at obedience, no confidence in the flesh.”
Question 1: Can you say verbally and mean it: “I look to the cross and I see my old self was circumcised.” Can you speak that out? Can you say: “My sin and shame were cut off and rolled away at the cross. My old identity was removed and I am now a new creation in Christ with no eternal guilt or shame”?
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