{From a conversation 🙂}

Circumcision is a covenant, not a religion, and it is not for salvation: as Paul pointed out about Abraham: "faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision." Ro 4 - Abraham was saved when he was uncircumcised. Likewise, Christ rebuked the faithless circumcised by saying, "many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." Lk 4.
About Naaman, when he converted to worshipping Yahweh, he did not become circumcised - instead, he took soil from the land of Israel to build an altar to Yahweh in Syria (which was forbidden for the circumcised to do), and the Prophet of God blessed his action (2K 5).

Even though Christ explicitly said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me" (Jn 14), still many people (even many Baptists) will say that salvation was by circumcision before Christ came - this idea may have come from Atheist anthropologists mistakenly categorising circumcision as a religion replaced by Christianity, rather than as a covenant within the one true religion which has been since the beginning of time.

The circumcised must of course keep the covenant they are in, and after Christ's coming (no doubt because of the judgement on the circumcised) other people must not enter into the covenant:
"Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised." 1Cor 7

Sadly, I doubt many circumcised today keep the covenant as they should keep it. Many of them also, especially those named "orthodox", follow the same man-made traditions which were called "the traditions of the elders" in Scripture. Jesus spoke against these traditions; even hand-washing before eating, which doesn't go against any of God's commands, and of course would not be wrong for you or I to do, Jesus and his disciples specifically did not keep this tradition, because the traditions were "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mt 15 and Mk 7).

This is why the Sarkosi definition has this part: "A free man has sole authority under God over his possessions". That is, no man can arbitrarily create a rule that a free man must follow, but can only enforce the laws that God has already made. (Of course, a man is bound to keep his word: this is the righteous way other rules come in, like agreeing to follow the rules of a website in order to use it.)

The Amish look different from the outside - there's different groups, and the Mennonites are similar but less strict - but within, the Amish "teach for doctrines the commandments of men" very very much, sad to say. For example, some of them don't merely choose not to use technology, they actually condemn all people who use it, and some within these Amish groups would be cast out and despised if they so much as posed for a non-Amish person to take a photograph of them.
It is kind of funny though, some people in Ireland thought we were Amish - even though the Amish would not get on a plane to come to Ireland! 🙃

#sabbathposts 2024/03/09