We who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort.
(Philippians 3:3 NLT)
In the New Testament circumcision is regarded as spiritual and inward. Paul
said it quite emphatically, Neither is that circumcision which is outward in
the flesh... circumcision is that of the heart (Rom. 2:28-29). We are
the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3). It is a
spiritual thing, an inward thing; it is of the heart. And it simply means that
in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, the natural life and the reasoning of the
natural life, or the self-life the willing of the self-life, the desiring of
the self-life has been cut off by the Cross. Every expression and aspect of
the self-life has been cut through by the Cross and is put in the place where
the door is shut. There is no open door to any expression of the natural life.
The Cross says, "The door is closed; death rests upon that." That is spiritual
circumcision.
Stephen, in that matchless discourse of his which resulted in his murder,
cried at one point to those who were persecuting and about to stone him, Ye
stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart (Acts 7:51). What did he mean by uncircumcised
in heart and ears? He just meant this, that they were only willing and
minded to have what they wanted and nothing more. Prejudice is a certain mark of
an uncircumcised heart. Bigotry is the same, and anything that you can find that
made up the situation which brought Stephen to his death is a mark of an
uncircumcised heart. That is the thought. Still there is the reasoning and the
arguing of the Self, of the natural life. There is still the desiring and the
feeling of the Self obtruding itself. The Cross, spiritual circumcision, says
"No!" to it all.