Pastor and 1st Lady Mims

Mims Chapel Church

Week 9, November 3, 2025

LESSON 9

Circumcision Without Hands

Lesson Text:

Colossians 2:11; Genesis 17:10,11;
Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Galatians 5:24

Memory Verse
"In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ."
Colossians 2:11

Key Terms

Circumcision • The action or practice of cutting off the foreskin of a young boy or man (especially a baby) for religious, cultural, or medical reasons.

Deliberation - Long and careful consideration or discussion.

Mohel • (Hebrew) A person trained to perform Jewish circumcisions.

Suggested Emphasis

For the rest of the quarter we will move with great deliberation, basically verse-by-verse, through this final major section of Christology in the epistle: Colossians 2:11-15. We will pick these verses apart, trying to unpack this very dense teaching about Christ. This week, our attention falls on verse 11. Here we have Paul using the metaphor of "circumcision," the implications of which his First Century audience would have readily understood, but about which modern readers may need a refresher course.

Emphasis 1:

The Sign of Circumcision

The scriptural background of circumcision is that it is a covenant sign of the people of God. "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" (Gen. 17:10,11). Of course, circumcision in the Old Testament was only a sign, pointing to something else. Moses clarified the matter when he used the metaphor of circumcision to discuss internal issues of the Israelite heart: "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked" (Deut. 10:16). The sign was of what had to change in the Israelite's personality and behavior: "Stubbornness must be cut away, not just the foreskin" (Piper, 2023b).

Emphasis 2:

The Distinction Between
"the Flesh" and "the Body"

But Paul pulls his audience away from any conventional understanding of circumcision, when he tells the Colossians, "Ye are circumcised with the circumcision not made with hands" (Col. 2:11). Clearly, the argument is that, in union with Christ, there is a separation of some sort. At first, we may assume it is merely physical, because "the body" is referenced, but the precise language Paul uses is meaningful. Reading the KJV, "in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh" may sound like some kind of rejection of the physical body. But a good paraphrase is helpful here: "When you came to Christ, you were 'circumcised,' but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature" (Col. 2:11, NLT). There is a distinction between "the body" and "the flesh." Usually, when Paul speaks of "the flesh" he means the internal characteristics that animate the body. For example, "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Gal. 5:24). Here, "the flesh" speaks of human nature ("affections and lusts") rather than body parts (Williams, 2015).

Emphasis 3:

Without Human Hands

Paul further says that this curtailing of our sinful nature is performed directly by the Lord. This was promised even in the Old Testament: "And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live" (Deut. 30:6). That prophecy of Moses illustrates that physical circumcision practiced by the Israelites was a typological representation of what God would do Himself. As the skilled mo-hel would use a knife to trim a little skin from the eight-day-old baby boy, God would trim the sin nature from the believing Christian.

Missions Application Questions:

What spiritual truth did the covenant sign of circumcision point to?
What is the distinction between "the body" and "the flesh"?
What is a "circumcision without hands"?

World Missions Prayer Points

• Let us pray that the foreskin of our hearts be circumcised, and we master our inclination to sin.
Let us pray to remember that the transformation of our hearts was God's work.