I recently came across an interesting link between the old covenant sign of circumcision and an Anglican rite called the Churching of Women. Rushdoony made this connection in the first section of The Institutes of Biblical Law; it was intriguing enough that I wanted to outline the basic connection. The two ideas are discussed in the first chapter dealing with the first of the Ten Commandments. “Those who obey the first commandment, ‘Thou shalt not have other gods before me,’ are members of the covenant. The two basic rites of the covenant in the Old Testament were circumcision and the Passover…” (Rushdoony, 41).
Rushdoony points out that circumcision was widely practiced in the pagan world. Though a pagan practice, Geerhardus Vos rightly notes that “the rite was everywhere a religious one” (Vos, Biblical Theology, 89). The pagan version of the rite is different from the Old Testament practice. Traditionally, pagan circumcision was seen as an act of the will, a sort of self-propelled motion that crossed the border between childhood and adulthood. Rushdoony sees this as a form of Pelagianism; an act of will on the part of the individual which integrates a man into the tribe.
The Old Testament rite of circumcision was rooted in the covenant of the sovereign God. Examples of circumcision pre-date Abraham and are found widely across cultures: Vos writes, “We must, therefore, admit that it was not given to Abraham as a previously unknown thing, but introduced into his family invested with a new significance” (Vos, 89).
What new significance was circumcision invested with? Rushdoony quotes Vos’s Biblical Theology in a very helpful way: “For the doctrinal understanding of circumcision two facts are significant; first, it was instituted before the birth of Isaac, secondly, in the accompanying revelation only the second promise, relating to numerous posterity is referred to. These two facts together show that circumcision has something to do with the process of propagation. Not in the sense that the act is in itself sinful, for there is no trace of this anywhere in the Old Testament. It is not the act but the product, that is human nature, which is unclean, and stands in need of purification and qualification. Hence circumcision is not, as among pagans, applied to grown-up young men, but to infants on the eighth day. Human nature is unclean and disqualified in its very source. Sin, consequently, is a matter of the race and not of the individual only” (Rushdoony, 42).
While promises were made to Abraham and his seed… “Circumcision teaches that physical descent from Abraham is not sufficient to make true Israelites. The uncleanness and disqualification of nature must be taken away. Dogmatically speaking, therefore, circumcision stands for justification and regeneration, plus sanctification (Rom 4:9-12; Col. 2:11-13)” (Rushdoony, 42).
The sin of Adam is found in the product of human propagation, leaving no room for self-authored salvation. The whole of man has been affected by sin: “Neither the flesh nor the spirit of fallen man is clean before God. There is no more hope in things spiritual than in things material. Circumcision witnesses to the fact that man’s hope is not in generation but in regeneration, and the witness of the ceremony of the purification of women is the same” (Rushdoony, 43).
Circumcision of male children shortened the time of purification, while the testimony of the ritual of purification was “…witness to covenant membership for the daughters. It was a reminder that covenant righteousness was of the grace of God, to mother and child, and that grace, not race or blood, is the fountainhead of salvation” (Rushdoony, 43).
This rite Rushdoony sees as being carried out in the modern church. He writes, “The service continues in the church, and appears, for example, in The Book of Common Prayer as ‘The Thanksgiving of Woman after Childbirth’ or ‘the Churching of Women.’ It begins with the pastoral declaration, ‘forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his goodness, to give you safe deliverance, and to preserve you in the great danger of childbirth: You shall give hearty thanks unto God,’ and it concludes with the presentation by the woman of a required gift. The rite has reference, not to actual sin but original sin, and it is a recognition of the fall of man and of covenant grace. By birth the old rebellion of Adam is reintroduced into the covenant household in the form of a child whose nature is inherited from Adam. This hereditary corruption is acknowledged, and the covenant of grace beseeched, in the ritual of the purification of women. There is no valid reason for the discontinuance of the rite. It has been reduced to a simple thanksgiving in The Book of Common Prayer, which is an atrophy of meaning, but this still far surpasses the practice of other churches” (Rushdoony, 44).
The 2019 ACNA Book of Common Prayer includes this prayer in the rite: “O eternal God, you have promised to be a father to a thousand generations of those who love and fear you: Bless this child and preserve his life; receive him and enable him to receive you, that through your grace and the Sacrament of Baptism he may become the child of God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” This rite reminds us that salvation is of the Lord; like circumcision, it is witness that man’s hope cannot be in generation, but our hope must be in regeneration.