Alright, so this afternoon we're going to continue our study of law, God's law. And especially as it relates to the various covenants in the Bible. We looked at the covenant of works with Adam, made with mankind through Adam. The law governing that. We looked at, last time we looked at the covenant of grace. wherein God or man can be given a new representative, Christ, before God. We just looked at the laws governing that. Now we're going to go and start looking through the Old Testament at the various covenants there and the various laws and things governing those covenants and see how they apply to the people of God today. In what ways? Are we to keep them? Are we to learn something from them? What is it? So, I'm actually going to... Normally we would come, as we go through history, after the Garden of Eden, we come to the covenant made with Noah and all creation. But I'm actually going to skip that one. I'm going to come back to that later at the end. I think that's going to be helpful for us. So now we're going to go and then the next covenant we come to is the covenant made with Abraham. Genesis 17. So you can turn in your Bibles to Genesis 17. And we'll read the entire chapter. And then... And then we'll pray and then we'll go through the chapter to learn about this particular covenant. So, Genesis 17, verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham. For I have made you a father of many nations. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abram, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations. He who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Then God said to Abraham, As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her. And then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples shall be from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, O that Ishmael might live before you. Then God said, No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year. And then he finished talking with him and God went up from Abraham. So Abraham took Ishmael, his son, all who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their four skins that very same day as God had said to him. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And that very same day Abraham was circumcised, and his son Ishmael, and all the men of his house, born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. Amen. Alright, well let's pray before we look at this. Father in heaven, again, we ask that you might bless us as we seek to understand the purpose and the meaning of these covenants in scripture. Lord, you have given us your word. You have revealed something of yourself to us through these covenants. May you reveal yourself. May we see that glory today, Lord. May we be reminded of the good God that you are, a covenant-keeping God. And Lord, may we be encouraged as your people today. Bless the preacher, bless the hearer, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so just gonna give a very quick review so we're all remember where we're at here. We're looking at God's law. God's law is just the topic we're under, but God's law is very expansive. We have all sorts of different laws in the Bible. What we've done is we've distilled that down and divided it into two categories. We have natural law, and you have the other laws that are what we call positive laws. Natural laws are laws that are written on man's heart, laws that man knows by nature. By nature of being a human being, he just knows these things, what is right and what is wrong. according to the knowledge that God has implanted upon his heart. I should say, this doesn't mean necessarily that man is going to obey all of those laws. Just because they're written on his heart, just because he knows them, doesn't mean he's going to obey them. In fact, man does the opposite. Unregenerate man only disobeys those laws and violates them constantly. Paul says he suppresses that knowledge that he has. But we have to remember, He knows those laws nonetheless because that's how He's held accountable before God. Because He knows those laws and He willfully violates them and therefore He's guilty before God. All mankind, everyone who is a human nature or a human being having a human nature, knows these things. So that's natural law. Positive laws. Laws that are not known to man on his heart, written on his heart, but laws that are given supernaturally by God. That means revealed in a special way, and therefore they're not known to all men. And if they're not known to all men, they can't be applied to all men, and not all men are responsible to keep them. So then we said, well then how do we know which laws, which positive laws in the Bible, laws like circumcision, which we're going to look at today, laws like not eating shellfish, how do we know if those apply to me or not? We saw that God always reveals these laws in a covenant, in a covenantal setting. So then, in order to determine which laws apply to me, we have to ask the question, well, which covenant am I in? Do I belong to these? Which covenant I am, that'll tell me which laws apply to me. And the cardinal rule, the reason I'm setting this groundwork here is the cardinal rule is that just because if we see a law in one covenant over here, a certain law, we can't say, well, that positive law is over there. Therefore, we must take that law and apply it into a different covenant. We can't do that. We keep laws within their own covenants. specially revealed to, in this covenant. And that revelation is always given, typically given to an individual. And that individual typically then, or will always represent a larger group of people. He's that, he's the representative. And usually he's representing a family, or a household, or a nation, or a kingdom. So then what we can do then is when we're asking the question, what covenant do I belong to? We ask, well, which family or which household or which nation or which kingdom am I in? So, that's why we're looking at covenants in detail then. So we can rightly apply God's laws to us. If we go wrong on the covenants, we go wrong on God's laws and not understanding how to apply God's laws to us. Again, last week then, we saw that new covenant, or that covenant of grace that God makes with those who believe in Him. What are the laws governing that? Christ is the head of the new covenant. Christ, basically, we saw last time, Christ says, you get baptized, you partake of communion, you worship me in the way that I tell you you are to be worshipped. Basically, we can sum it all up as the regulative principle of worship. We're the household of Christ. And so therefore, because we're His, He's the householder, He's the master, we order our household, which is the church, according to those laws. Now, last week, I picked on patal baptism, somewhat. and basically saying, you know, they're revising the laws that Christ has given. Christ gives a law for his people and says, this is what you must do. And I charged the Baptists, the Paedo-Baptists, saying, they're taking that law and they're revising it. They're changing the recipients of baptism that Christ said. They're changing the mode of baptism. And so what they're saying, what they're doing is they're making that cross covenant, we might say. They're saying, hey, in this covenant over here, we see that there's physical children are included. So that means in this covenant over here, physical children must be included as well. So therefore, you know, and then because I don't want to drown my child, I change the mode as well. And then I also said, to be fair, they don't see that they're doing it. They say it's all the same covenant. It's all one covenant. That covenant that includes physical children, the Abrahamic covenant, they say that's the same as that covenant of grace. The Westminster Confession says these are not two covenants differing in substance, but they are one and the same. under various dispensations. So, today we're going to look then at the question, are they the same covenants? I don't intend this to be an attack against paedo-baptism. There's a huge application for God's people when we understand rightly the distinction of these covenants and what we can learn from circumcision and this positive law that's given in the Abrahamic covenant. So that's primarily what we're going to look at today, the Abrahamic covenant. Watch this, kids. Already been drawn for you. So this is, remember, this is how we understand, basically, God's dealings with mankind. God, he's given what we call the covenant of works, which is the law, man. He makes it with Adam, but really it's with all humanity. He says, Adam, if you keep the law, you can have eternal life. You can have access to me. You can have eternal life with me. Adam sins. Adam fails to do that. Therefore, the wiggly line means there's no access anymore for Adam. But then God, He makes a covenant of grace. That's the dotted line. I'm just going to write C-O-G. That means covenant of grace. Dotted line. is a covenant of grace that God makes that says, now you can come through Christ. Christ is going to keep this covenant. He's going to obey my law. He's going to fulfill the curse as well for all of his people whom he represents. Christ represents the elect or his church. And now Christ has kept this. So this dotted line, the covenant of grace, provides you access, provides you eternal life. through Christ who keeps the covenant of works for you. This is God's interactions, covenantal interactions with mankind in one picture right here. Excuse me. So, now let's go and look then at the other covenants that are in the Bible. And then you can already see I've got sort of a blank slate that looks a lot like that. Doesn't it? And that's important for us to understand. So let's look at this covenant here. God says to Abraham, so he comes, he's making a covenant with Abraham in here, in verse 2. I'm going to make a covenant between me and you. So we have God. I'm going to start on this side. That's going to be a bit more helpful. God makes a covenant with Abraham, but remember, Abraham, when covenants, covenants are always made with one, but he's representing a greater, a greater number of people. Look at verse 7. I will establish my covenant between you and your descendants. So Abraham's descendants. And I will be their God. So the party is made with Abraham, with his descendants. And what's offered in the covenant? Remember, a covenant always offered something, a blessing, a reward of some sort. Verse 8, I will give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. So God, together with his people, I will be their God. Where? Dwelling in Canaan. So the reward, put it up here, life in Canaan, And that's life with God. They're dwelling with God in the land. God and Abraham's descendants dwelling together with God. And God promises that. Is there a term here? Is there something Abraham has to do in order to receive this blessing? Verse 9, God says to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant. So there's something, so keeping. Is there, there is something he needs to do here. Keep my covenant. What do you need to do? You and your descendants. This is my covenant that you shall keep. between me and you and your descendants, every male among you shall be circumcised." So the positive, the law that he has to obey, or the thing he has to do, I suppose, in order for his descendants to have life in Canaan is he has to circumcise. That's all you get. Circumcise. So that's So what we could say then is for any of Abraham's descendants to belong in this, to belong in this circle of representation under this family group, we could say, and to have access to Canaan, they had to be circumcised. They had to be circumcised. So basically, if you weren't circumcised, you didn't belong in this circle, you don't get the reward, life in Canaan. But notice there's also something about circumcision that acts as a warning. Verse 14, the uncircumcised male who's not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person will be cut off from my people. He's broken my covenant. So, again, either you cut off the flesh of your foreskin, you belong to this circle, you don't. Then God says, then I'll cut you off. And you don't belong to that family represented by Abraham. You're barred entry, as it were, barred entry into life in Canaan. But now I want us to see something here. Is this a term of obedience to the covenant? Put it this way. Is there a law or something that the individual must do in order to receive these blessings? The individual. Think of it from the child's perspective. The infant, the little boy who's just been born. Is there something he can do in order to belong to this covenant? He himself? No. It's something that his father must do for him. So in that sense, for Abraham's descendants, in that sense, it's something that they receive. In a sense, it's grace then. They're receiving something. Their father is doing something for them. They are relying on him circumcising them when they're eight days old so that they can belong to this covenant. And they can receive the life in the land. So that way, for the descendants, for the children, It's, they're relying on their father, they're relying, it's grace for them. Not saving grace, nothing to do with their salvation of their souls, but just grace that enables them to receive that. that blessing. So we'll come back to that in a moment. Now then, notice how God makes some clarifications here on what He means by Abraham's descendants. Not just every single person that descends from Abraham, because He says, Abraham, you're going to be a father of nations and a father of kings. And you're going to have, you know, all sorts of descendants. But God further sort of just delineates that for us in verse 12. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations. He who is born in your house or bought with your money from a foreigner." So, that's his household. Abraham's household. Right? Verse 23. It says that there, Abraham took Ishmael's son and all who were born in his house and all bought with his money. And then verse 27, all the men of his house. So we're talking households. So Abraham's household is then is represented by him. So those whom he has purchased for himself. And then he further clarifies the descendants. In verse 19 to 21, Sarah is going to have your son, bear you a son. His name will be Isaac. I'll establish my covenant with him and with his descendants. Verse 21, again, my covenant I'll establish with Isaac. And we know then that's the nation of Israel. So, Abraham. is the representative. We call it the federal head, if you like theological terms. The federal head of his descendants, which is his household, but it's going to be perpetuated through the ages in the line of coming from Isaac, and then Jacob, and subsequently the nation of Israel. And we see that as we go read the rest of Genesis. God comes and renews that covenant, or reminds Isaac of the covenant. He reminds Jacob of the covenant. That's why, throughout the Scriptures, He says, the covenant I made with your fathers, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So it's all that same covenant, just further identifying that it is the nation of Israel who descend from Abraham. But it's important. We're talking physical descendants. He's very clear about this. Those who physically descend from Abraham are part of this covenant there. So in order for them to be... So Abraham is the representative. Israel is those whom he represents. In order to be included in this covenant, you needed to be born under Abraham or bought by Abraham, and you needed to be circumcised by Abraham. or your father, per se, but the idea is that Abraham as the head is doing that. And what is God offering in their life in the land of Canaan? But this isn't the whole story of Abraham. And understanding Abraham in the context in which he's living there helps us to reveal a bit more about what's going on here. Where was Abraham before all of this began? In Genesis 12, God calls him from where? Out of Ur of the Chaldees. Chaldea is where what was in Genesis 11? Tower of Babylon. So Abraham is actually in Did I say Tower of Babylon? Tower of Babel. Because in the Hebrew language, Babel and Babylon are the identical word. So to call it the Tower of Babylon is just to use the... I don't know what language eventually took Babel and became Babylon. But it's the same word in the Hebrew. The Tower of Babel. Which is very significant, by the way. So let's do this now. Abraham is in Babel. What happens at Babel? There's all the nations. All the nations are there. They're under the curse, aren't they? as it were, God curses them. They're cut off from God, any access of God that they were trying to accomplish themselves. They're cut off from God, they're scattered, they're under the curse. So this whole circle is cursed, much like this whole circle over here is cursed once Adam, after Adam sins. They're there. God calls Abraham out of Babel. He undergoes his own calling up, calling out. So we start to see, we're starting to see some more patterns here. And then we see that in Genesis 12, there's a famine. What do famines indicate? Curse, right? Cursed is the ground for your sake. There's a famine. Abraham's in Egypt again. We find Abraham in Egypt because of a famine. So he's in Egypt. And then God calls him up out of Egypt. He's undergoing his same from being cursed, and God calls him out and brings him back to Canaan. Genesis 13.1, he comes up out of Egypt. And then God, each time this happens, God reveals some more of this covenant to him. Genesis 13. Do we have time? Genesis 14. Lot, Abraham's family, is captured. Lot is captured, taken away by who? Tidal, king of the nations. And Lot is there, and what does Abraham do? Abraham goes, rescues his family from the nations. Tidal, king of nations, rescues him and brings him back and back to life in Canaan again. So you're starting to see some pictures, some patterns here, aren't we? And then God says the same thing in Genesis 15. He says, Abraham, your descendants, they're actually going to begin their life in bondage. They're going to begin their life in, verse 13, your descendants will be strangers in a land that's not theirs. So they're not going to have this life in Canaan. They're going to be strangers. They're going to be afflicted, means they're going to be in bondage for 400 years. And then I'll judge that nation and they'll come out. And then God, and then verse 18, on that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. So, so the covenant, really the covenant that God makes, In chapter 15, your descendants are going to be strangers. I'm going to bring them out. And on the same day, the Lord enters a covenant. So really what we could say, the Abrahamic covenant is a covenant that God says to, God promises to Abraham. He says, your descendants, I will bring them out of bondage and I will give them life in Canaan. I'll rescue your household, your kingdom, your nation. Those whom you have circumcised, Abraham, and I'll give them life in the land of Canaan." Now, to complete this picture, when God takes this nation out, when He does this, He says, I'm going to give you this land, this land that I promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, but in order to receive that land, you must obey My laws, laws in, we'll call it the covenant of Moses. Usually we call it the Mosaic covenant. You're going to have this life, but in order for you to do it, Israel, you must obey these laws. We find that in several places here, but I'll read to you just from Deuteronomy 7 for a moment. If you, if God says, Because you're Abraham's descendants and circumcised, I'm going to give you life. But you also, you have to do it through this, by obeying this. These laws, Deuteronomy 7 verse 11, Therefore you shall keep the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today to observe them. And it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which he swore to your fathers. See, so both of these covenants are working together to offer them life in the land of Canaan. And as time goes on, this is what happens. And actually, first I should say, maybe as time goes on, God reveals to them that it's actually the king, it's actually the king who has to obey. So we can put the king here of Israel. And then we're going to change this up because Abraham is gone. Abraham, this covenant... Yeah, let's just do the same thing. And the king is over here, representing Israel. I'll explain this in a moment. So God says the king is the one who has to obey my laws. The king, if the king obeys, The people get the blessing. You can read that in 1 Kings 9. We don't have time to go there, but this is when he reiterates to Solomon and says, this covenant I made with David says, if you obey my laws, good. If you disobey my laws, all Israel is cut off. And that's what happens, isn't it? God is in this covenant with him. The king is supposed to obey this covenant. He's supposed to obey the law and lead the people there. What does he do? Think of Saul. Saul breaks God's law. He's cut off. Israel is under bondage to the Philistines. But then what does God do? He offers a new king, David, a man after God's own heart, a man whom God fills with His Spirit, and a man who obeys this law. We sang, oh, how love I thy law. It's from Psalm 119. David wrote that psalm. Obviously, it's pointing us to Christ, the perfect law keeper. But David wrote that psalm. He delighted in the law of God. He kept that law, and he earned This life in Canaan, blessed life in Canaan, and his son Solomon was the king who ruled over that. And you can read about that joyful kingdom that Solomon reigned over. They had the temple, they were dwelling with God. It was abundance and joy, exactly what God had promised. But what happens here, every time a king breaks the law, they're cut off, but God always says, because of that covenant I made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that's the dotted line there, I'll call you back out of bondage, I'll give you a new king, he's going to keep that law. And then you can have life in Canaan again. And that pattern is, we see that pattern just over and over and over again. Probably the greatest picture of it is when Israel violates that law and where do they go? They go to Babel or they go to Babylon. And then God raises up a new king, King Cyrus. And he says, God has called me to build a house and make his people great again. And he says, whoever wants to go, and they all come, and they all go back to the land. So that's, now we have the whole picture. You have to obey my laws, Israel, for this land. You break them, you're violated, or you're cut off. But because of the covenant that I made, I will provide a new king, and you will have, and who will give you that access to that land. So we have the whole picture. Now, what's happening? Look at this picture and look at that picture. They're identical. It's the same thing. Except one concerns our souls and our eternal life. One concerns a nation and temporal life in Egypt. So this is a picture of that. This is the real thing. This is just the picture. God's covenant relationship with Israel through Abraham and through Moses is just a picture of his relationship with mankind and with his chosen, with his remnant, his elect, through the Lord Jesus Christ. The picture is not the real thing. The picture is just the picture. So this Abrahamic covenant, that's the dotted line that brings you out and offers you life. It's just a picture of this covenant of grace over here. It's not the covenant of grace. Two separate covenants. One's the picture, one's the real thing. Abraham, we call this, Abraham is a type of Christ. He's not Christ. Abraham doesn't give us eternal life. Only Christ can do that. So Abraham is a type of Christ. And Abraham's covenant then is a type of that covenant with Christ. Abraham's covenant is very physical. It's very outward in nature so that we can learn about the spiritual realities that it points us to. And this is where we have to then learn, okay, when we're saying this is a picture pointing us to the greater thing, we have to realize it's always The physical thing, the outward type in this, in the picture, is pointing us to the spiritual thing in reality. We always go from the physical teaching us about the spiritual. Abraham, the physical father of his people. Christ, the spiritual father of his people. Abraham is not a type of physical Christian fathers today. Abraham is a type of Christ. Abraham teaches us about Christ and what Christ does for his family, his people. Physical life in Canaan is offered in the Abrahamic Covenant. Spiritual life in a global paradise, we read in Isaiah 66 this morning, new heavens, new earth, where righteousness dwells. With God, that's offered in this covenant that God made for all of us, with all mankind. Not that all mankind is saved. Only those who believe in Christ receive it, right? So, physical household. Sorry, physical life in Canaan, spiritual life in a global paradise with God. Physical children of Abraham in this covenant. Spiritual children of Christ in that covenant. In the new covenant. Galatians 3 verse 26. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. See? We don't want to go from the physical children to the physical children. We're saying physical children points us to spiritual children, which is what we find in the New Testament. You are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Physical household in the Abrahamic covenant points us to the spiritual household in the new covenant, or the covenant of grace, using those terms synonymously. Ephesians 2 verse 19, now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners. Where did we hear that language before? Genesis 15, right? God says there are going to be strangers in a land that's not theirs, but then I'm going to bring them out. and make them my people." Ephesians 2.19, The physical household teaches us about the spiritual household. Physical household in the Old Testament, what about the spiritual household of God in the New? A physical nation or kingdom in the Abrahamic Covenant called out of physical bondage, pointing us to a spiritual nation in the New Covenant called out of spiritual bondage. 1 Peter 2, 9, verse 10, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into marvelous light. You once were not a people, but now are the people of God. Physical circumcision in the Abrahamic Covenant finds its terminus, points us to spiritual circumcision in the New Covenant. In Him, you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Colossians 2.11, Christ is circumcising his people. What does that mean? Not physically, spiritually, putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. Or as Paul says, cutting off that old corrupt human nature, that old fleshly nature is cut off. That's what regeneration is, the work of the Spirit in our hearts. This is, so the Old Testament, the Mosaic, or the Abrahamic Covenant, working together with the Mosaic Covenant, is a picture of the real thing, or a picture pointing us to a greater reality of God having a covenant with man. Man sins because God, because God promised to Christ, I'll give you a nation and I'll make you, and I'll give you these children. Because of that promise, covenant of grace, Covenant of Redemption, we could call it. Some separate those two. I think they're one and the same. God promised, because of that, we can have access to God. So, why do I say this? Why do we go through all this? Helps us here to see these covenants, they're not the same covenant, so we can't take the laws of this covenant and somehow change them and try to fit things from this covenant into that covenant. We can't do that. They're two separate things. That's what, in Acts 15, that's what the argument was when the Jews or the Christians who had been raised in this system knew the role of circumcision in that system, and they said, in order to have the promise God offers, we must be circumcised. So then they said, well, over here, if you want eternal life, you must be circumcised. And so they met together, the Jerusalem Council Act 16, and they said, no, no, no, they said, we're saved in the same way the Gentiles are saved. The Gentiles are saved by faith in Christ. By faith in Christ, they go from being under the curse and in Adam. By faith in Christ. They have eternal life. And they said, for you Jews, it's the same thing. Faith in Christ is how you're saved, apart from circumcision. Why? Because we're talking two different covenants over here. Two different rewards. So they said, you can't mix those two. That's basically their argument. And it goes the same thing with baptism. We can't say, well, There's physical children in this covenant. We want physical children over here and starting mixing and matching those things. So, two separate covenants. Laws remain in those respective covenants because those laws are supernaturally revealed to the representative of that specific covenant. But, So that's why we don't, that's why we say, that's why we disagree with the Paedo-Baptists. We say you're making a flaw here. You're crossing covenants that you shouldn't be doing. But, we have to respect, we have to appreciate the parallels here. This is exactly the same thing just happening in an outward sense. So then we can go, we can look at all of these parallels here in this Abrahamic covenant. We can look at them and they teach us something about Christ through this typology. So this is what I mentioned earlier. Physical circumcision is teaching us then something about spiritual circumcision. or regeneration, being, you know, the cutting off of that fleshly nature. What did we learn about circumcision in this covenant over here that allowed you to escape bondage and have life in Canaan? What did we learn about circumcision there for the child? He was utterly dependent upon his father to circumcise him. So what does that teach us about spiritual, about Christ and what he does? Christ, He's our spiritual Father. Christ is our Abraham, as it were. He's also our Moses. He's also our King David who obeys this law. But He's also our spiritual Father, Abraham, through whom we can come out of bondage and have that eternal life. But we're relying entirely on Him We're helpless. We can't get ourselves, we can't save ourselves in exactly the same way that that little 8-day-old boy couldn't circumcise himself and make himself a member of this covenant. We rely on Christ. Christ is our faithful, obedient Abraham who circumcises the flesh of our hearts. The Holy Spirit essentially is the knife that Christ uses to remove that fleshly nature. So we have to appreciate that we were helpless. We would not have received any of those blessings because we were cut off, we were in bondage. He comes, sends His Spirit into our hearts, revives us, gives us new life, cuts off that fleshly nature, makes us a new creature in Christ, so that we can receive the blessings that His Father, that God promised to Him, of life with Him in glory. So that's how... So that's how we ought to apply circumcision to the church today. Not as a law that you need to get circumcised or we need to twist it or mix it. That's not how the church applies circumcision, the teaching of circumcision. The church realizes, oh, I was helpless like a child. I depended on my father. to include me, to add me into his covenant, to bring me so that I might belong to this covenant, so that I might receive the reward, the gift of eternal life because of Christ. Our faithful Father, as it were, making us sons of God, circumcising our hearts so that we can receive His blessings. So everything here is pointing us to Christ. It's all teaching us about Christ and His work of Christ. Circumcision does the same. That's what we can learn. Let's appreciate that fact. The grace of God that draws us out of darkness and brings us into marvelous light. Let's close there in prayer. Lord, we again are humbled at that thought that, but for the grace of God, we would not have eternal life. But for the work of the Spirit of Christ sent into our hearts, we can now cry, Abba, Father. And we can have and we can receive the gift of eternal life with you. Lord, we thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he regenerates our hearts by his spirit. We thank you that he is that faithful king, the faithful son of David, who keeps your law in perfection. We thank you that he is that faithful hero who rescues us from bondage and brings us into glory. Lord, may we be encouraged by this. Now, may we learn much from these historical covenants that you revealed to us in your word. May we delight in our savior, the Lord Jesus. In his name we pray.