The Devil's Highlighter

And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:9-14)

This is directly contradicted by:

Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment (Acts 15:24)

Interpretation: The first verse is very obviously the word of God as spoken to Abraham. In it he specifically mandates circumcision. However, it is also clearly suggested that there was no such mandate according to the author of Acts. Perhaps the author simply was not aware of this, but one would think that the author of one of the new testaments would be fairly knowledgeable on his mosaic law. Additionally Consider the following scripture: Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:1-4) Here, Paul speaks out against circumcision. In fact, he suggests that if you get circumcised, you are obligated to obey the entire mosaic law and also that Christ will be of no value to you. If you read the entire chapter, you find that Paul suggests that one can reach salvation through faith and good deeds alone. This is contradictory to the words of Jesus himself who said that he did not come to abolish any of the old law (See this entry). Furthermore, he suggests that we have all fallen from grace and that the law is essentially of no consequence. Once again, this is not only against other Christian teachings, this is against any semblance of morality. How can any morality exist when everything is permissible? There are simply too many contradictions here to hunt them all down. So... who is right? Print This Post