Rom. 2:29, “But he [is] a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision [is that] of the heart, in the spirit, [and] not in the letter; whose praise [is] not of men, but of God.”
What is being removed from the heart in this spiritual circumcision?
Eze. 36:26 says, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
1 Tim. 4:2 mentions “a conscience seared with a hot iron.” What is the hot iron? I think of when a cow gets branded. The brand leaves a hard callous scab. In Eph. 4:18, the word “blindness” means calloused. So, blindness is due to the hardening of the heart. The phrase, “Do not harden you heart to the voice of the Spirit” is mentioned several times in the letter to the Hebrews.
Eph. 4:18, “Having the understanding darkened (lit. “shadowed”), being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance (or lack of knowledge, lack of revelatory liberating truth) that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:”
I believe the “understanding” in question here in Eph. 4:18 is the understanding that we ultimately receive by faith, Heb. 11:3. If our spiritual understanding to Life, who is Christ, is being blocked off or alienated then we are spiritually dead in our spirit and soul.
What does Hebrew mean? Found a great answer here,
“Hebrew” is the anglicized form of the Hebrew word ‘ibri, which comes from the root word ayin-bet-resh, “to cross or pass over.” The word means something along the lines of “ones from the other side/beyond,” though the other side of what exactly isn’t clear — perhaps the Jordan River, or perhaps the Euphrates. The word is used in the Hebrew Bible primarily to differentiate the group of people who would come to be called Israelites from other people-groups, such as Egyptians or the Philistines. Since the word “Israelite” (in biblical Hebrew, ben yisrael) would be sufficient to denote ethnic difference, it may be the case that the term ‘ibri additionally signifies a class status, since it usually occurs in texts where the people so named are enslaved. When the people of Israel are not experiencing slavery in the Hebrew Bible, the most common term used is b’ney yisrael (literally, “sons/children of Israel”)
This reminds me of 1 Pet. 1:16, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Be set apart, separate. In this sanctification by the Holy Spirit one is set apart. As we are set apart, we grow into who we truly are in Christ. Our lives are hid in Him, Col. 3:3.
So, what is being removed from the heart in this spiritual circumcision?
I believe it is the cause of spiritual death, condemnation, separation from the Father, spiritual misidentification, curses, manifestations of the flesh, and so on.
So, what is the ’cause’ ? For Gentiles, like myself, it is the self-imposed law written on my heart, Rom. 2:15. This self-imposed law aliented me from the life of God in His Son Jesus.
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