Now the Apostle speaks of this fundamental and indispensable blessing. He says that, having put off the body of sin, you were buried with the Lord in baptism and there also rose together in Him.
This is the same as saying: you died to sin and came alive for a new life according to God. You were renewed.
The Apostle expresses the latter benefaction of God in one word: "you were raised together" (Col 2:12). But he expresses the former in varied ways: being buried together with Christ the Lord, putting off the body of sin, and circumcision not made with hands.
It must be supposed that all these expressions were needed as a counterweight to the speculations of the seducing philosophers. This applies to all of them, not only to "circumcision not made with hands."
It is evident that they retained circumcision. Yet they did not cloak their deception by it alone, but also by many other things. Against these it was necessary to set the putting off of the body of sin and burial together with the Lord.
They treated circumcision not out of respect for the Law. Saint Paul makes no mention of the Law in the whole Epistle. Rather, they treated it according to certain philosophical views.
It is no wonder if they ascribed to it some mystical meaning apart from that given to it in the Law. They did the same with eating and drinking, feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, which are mentioned below.
"In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands." In the Epistle to the Romans, this circumcision not made with hands is called circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (cf. Rom 2:29).
They, he says, propose circumcision. But you have already received a higher and more perfect circumcision. Their circumcision is circumcision of the flesh, but the one received by you is circumcision of the heart. Theirs is made with hands, but yours is not made with hands.
Theirs is performed with a knife, but yours by the Spirit in Christ Jesus. Blessed Theodoret writes: "The Apostle points out the difference in circumcision and says: your circumcision is not fleshly but spiritual, not made by hands but divine, not the removal of a small part of the body, but freedom from the whole corruption."
Oecumenius adds: "Not the hand of man, but the Holy Spirit circumcised you from your sins." He borrowed this from Saint Chrysostom, who says: "Now circumcision is not from the knife, but from Christ Himself. Not a hand, as there, performs this circumcision, but the Spirit. Not a part is circumcised, but the whole man."
In what does this circumcision not made with hands consist? "In the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh," του σωματος των αμαρτιων της σαρκος. That is, the body of the sins of the flesh, or sins proceeding from the sin that lives in us, which is also called flesh.
The casting off of the body, or mass, of such sins is repentance. It gives forgiveness of sins, or the removal of guilt for them. Yet circumcision not made with hands, or circumcision of the heart, signifies more than forgiveness of sinful desire itself.
Therefore, in "the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh," as an expression explaining circumcision of the heart, one must see the putting off of sinful desire itself. This is the sin living in us, which is sometimes called simply "flesh."
Some read only: "in the putting off of the body of the flesh." This more closely expresses the required sense. Such an expression directly indicates the putting off of carnality, or fleshly-mindedness and desire.
Below (cf. Col 3:9) the Apostle called the same thing putting off the old man with his deeds. This means not only the mass of sins, but the very producer of them.
To explain somewhat what spiritual circumcision is, one must consider how things proceed in fallen man. Sin reigns in him, and it reigns by sinful sweetness.
The fallen man is so eager for this sweetness that, as soon as it beckons, he immediately runs after it. Sin sets forth sweetness, and in the fallen man there is desire for this sweetness.
Sin, enticing by sweetness, takes the fallen man by this desire as by a leash, and leads him to its works. Clearly, as long as the desire for sinful sweetness is not removed, sin will not cease to reign in the fallen man.
The poor man has no possibility of being freed from the tyranny of sin except through the cutting off within him of his susceptibility to sinful sweetness.
The grace that saves the fallen man has this cutting off as its first work. It accomplishes this by letting the fallen man feel all the bitterness of sin and taste the ineffable sweetness of life according to God.
When this is accomplished in the heart of the fallen man, then however much sin reminds him of its sweetness, the heart does not awaken desire for it. Instead, it awakens remembrance of sin's bitterness and of the sweetness of life according to God, with corresponding feelings.
As a result, the will naturally rejects sin and hastens toward what is opposed to it. This happens each time. The tyrannical power of sin is clearly cut off because the leash by which it always dragged the fallen man to its works has been cut.
This is the true meaning of circumcision of the heart by the Spirit. Expressing this, the Apostle says to those who have received grace in Romans: sin shall not have dominion over you.
"Reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God" (cf. Rom 6:14, 6:11). Think of yourselves in this way, as dead to sin and alive to God.
This is not a deceptive thought, but the substance of the work of salvation in Christ Jesus. Therefore the Apostle called such circumcision the circumcision of Christ.
It is the circumcision accomplished according to the divine economy of salvation fulfilled by Christ the Lord. One may put it another way: this is Christian circumcision, the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In it a man casts off from himself the tyranny of sin. Where and how is this Christian circumcision accomplished? In the font of baptism.
THEOSIS