Romans 4:11

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness which he had while he was in uncircumcision: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned unto them.

Abraham's prior justification before either the law or circumcision is the logical reason advanced by Paul to prove that Gentiles could be admitted to the faith of Jesus Christ without regard to circumcision or Moses' law. The great promise of salvation was made to Abraham. The blessing to "all the families of the earth" was promised in his seed, that is, "in Christ" (Galatians 3:16). But the Jew had so glorified Moses' law and the rite of circumcision that they unconsciously, but erroneously, identified both with Abraham. Paul was at great pains to explain that law and circumcision had absolutely nothing to do with the great promise of salvation to all the seed of Abraham, which the Jews had mistakenly supposed to be themselves only. Paul wrote:

Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many (reference to the Jewish nation); but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ (Galatians 3:16).

The great error of the Jews was therefore in misunderstanding the number of the noun "seed" in the great promise to Abraham; it was singular, and they thought it was plural! It pays to find out exactly what God said.

What about the law of Moses, and its alleged connection with the promises to Abraham's seed "in Christ"? Paul continued:

A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect (Galatians 3:17).

Of what value, then, was the law; and why did God give it? Paul answered thus:

It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made (Galatians 3:19).

Thus the law of Moses expired by limitation when Christ came. The law was given only "till the seed should come"; and, therefore, salvation "in Christ" bypasses the law of Moses completely.

The very identification of Abraham's seed (in the plural sense) also bypasses the law of Moses, Abraham's children being, not those of fleshly descent, but those redeemed "in Christ," as Paul explained in another place:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:27-29).

The father of all them that believe ... shows that all of the saved are children of Abraham, both Jews and Gentiles called here circumcision and uncircumcision. We have now dwelt at length upon the great deduction which Paul himself made from what he wrote; and, as shown above, it harmonizes perfectly with what he also wrote to the Galatians. Another alleged deduction made from Paul's writings in this chapter is in no wise apostolic, but human and diabolical, being this: that since Abraham was justified by faith only, so are the Gentiles. It has already been outlined here that Paul was not teaching that Abraham was justified by faith only, but by faith without the law of Moses and the rite of circumcision. The faith that saved Abraham, the great patriarch, was an obedient faith. See under Romans 4:3. Therefore, it is only by a disregard of what the word of the Lord says that one might receive such a proposition as this:

All Paul had to say about circumcision he would say equally about baptism.[7]

There are, of course, certain resemblances between baptism and circumcision; but the differences are extensive: (1) Circumcision did not bring the Jew into covenant relationship with Christ. A person born in the fleshly line was per se, of the children of Abraham; but Christians are of the seed of Abraham only if they have been baptized. See quotations from Galatians, above. R. L. Whiteside has this:

Every child of Jewish parentage was a member of that covenant by virtue of descent from Abraham. "And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant" (Genesis 17:14). It could not be said that a person broke the covenant by not being circumcised, if he were not in the covenant.[8]

(2) Baptism is "unto the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38), but circumcision was never anything like that. (3) At the time Abraham was justified without circumcision, the rite did not even exist, but came thirteen years later. Therefore: Abraham's justification without performing a rite he had never heard of, is a false parallel to a Christian's alleged justification without baptism, a rite which he HAS heard of, and to which he is commanded to submit by none other than Christ himself. Therefore, any suggestion that Paul here laid down a doctrine of justification without baptism must be rejected as utterly beyond the perimeter of anything in Romans, or in the whole New Testament.

What, then, did Paul mean? Macknight explained it thus:

To this example, the apostle appealed with great propriety ... because Abraham, being the father of believers, his justification is the pattern of theirs. Wherefore, if circumcision contributed nothing to Abraham's justification, the Jews could not hope to be justified thereby, nor by the other rites of the law; and were much to blame in pressing those rites on the Gentiles as necessary to their salvation, and in consigning all to damnation who were out of the pale of the Jewish church.[9]

It is absolutely clear that Paul was dealing with a perplexing problem that persisted in the apostolic age, and that was the efforts of Christians of Jewish background to graft circumcision and law-keeping onto the coat-tails of Christianity. It was with that problem that Paul dealt in this chapter; and justification by faith ONLY is nowhere in it. For such to be in it, there would have had to be a statement that Abraham was justified by faith ONLY. Where is it?

(4) A fourth distinctive difference between baptism and circumcision is in the initiative performing the rites. Circumcision was performed upon babies of eight days in age, without either their knowledge or consent; whereas baptism is never scripturally administered except upon one who is of accountable age, believes with all of his heart in Christ, confesses his faith, repents of his sins, and presents himself as a candidate for the administration of the ordinance of God, the initiative for his baptism thus coming from the believer himself, and not from the administrator, or anyone else. This is especially clear in Peter's wording of the first commandment on this subject ever announced in the current dispensation. He said,

Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38).

A reference to Vine's Greek Dictionary will show that the words rendered "be baptized every one of you" stand thus in the Greek: "have yourselves baptized." The scriptural teaching on baptism thus refutes the misconception, as advocated by Hodge, to the effect that:

This (circumcision) is the broad and enduring base of infant church membership.[10]

Circumcision was both the sign and the seal of the ancient covenant, as here stated by Paul; but the revelation of a completely new system of redemption in Christ made circumcision obsolete, a fact that Paul did not state dogmatically in this place, out of deference to the feelings of his Jewish countrymen; but he implied it here, and did not hesitate to state his position dogmatically upon any occasion when the Judaizers sought to bind it upon Gentiles, as in any way pertinent to their salvation (Galatians 5:2).

[7] Wm. M. Greathouse, op. cit., p. 103.

[8] R. L. Whiteside, op. cit., p. 100.

[9] James Macknight, Apostolical Epistles (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1960), p. 73.

[10] Charles Hodge, op. cit., p. 117.