Looking To The Cross | Day 26 | Ephesians 2:13-15

I became a Christian at a young age, so growing up, I knew Jesus forgave all my sins, and I was a child of God.

However, it wasn't until I did an inductive Bible study on Ephesians that I appreciated the magnificence of the inheritance I had in Christ compared to the hopeless state that I and all Gentile (non-Jewish) people were born into without Him. Ephesians 2:11-12 explains that before accepting Christ, I was a foreigner to the covenant of the promise and labelled “uncircumcised”. 

God established a covenant of blood starting with Abraham's circumcision that continued through the sacrificial system of the Law. Due to its bloody and personal nature, circumcision was considered a defining characteristic of God's people and also, a qualification for His acceptance. To be uncircumcised was to be a Gentile; disqualified from the people of God.

Jesus broke through the physical barrier of circumcision through his blood sacrifice on the cross. Christ's sacrifice was necessary because, as Leviticus 17:11 explains, "it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.” When we trust in Christ’s atoning blood, we have attained the “true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh”, (Phil. 3:3).

As Christians, we are grafted into the family of God through the rootstock of Christ. He is our foundation and source of peace with God. Just as a branch grafted into a tree shares all the tree's nutrients, we are one in Christ and able to enjoy the blessings and benefits therein, not because of anything that we did but because He loves us and invited us into his family.