July 21
MORNING
What is the value of circumcision?
Much in every way.--"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts."--"If then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham."
Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.--In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.--You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.
Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and . . . be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and . . . put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Rom. 3:1; Rom. 3:2; Jer. 4:4; Lev. 26:41, 42; Rom. 15:8; Col. 2:11; Col. 2:13; Eph. 4:22-24
EVENING
The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."--"The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. . . . Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. . . . Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail."
The new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh . . . let us draw near.
Matt. 27:51; 1 Cor. 11:23, 24; John 6:51; John 6:53, 54, 56, 57, 61-63; Heb. 10:20, 22
