The exclusion of the stranger.
There was a strict exclusiveness about the Hebrew religion. Only the circumcised were to share in its privileges. In regard to outward ordinances and national distinctions, this exclusiveness is destroyed by Christ, and his gospel is free to Gentile as well as Jew, to the uncircumcised as well as the circumcised (Galatians 5:6). Nevertheless, in spite of the new breadth of Christianity, the ideas suggested by the old, narrow exclusiveness still obtain, though now only in spiritual relations.
I. THE STRANGER TO GOD IS EXCLUDED FROM THE PRIVILEGES OF RELIGION. It matters not what nation he belongs to; now we have to do with spiritual, not national distinctions. Thus it is possible that the Jew or the Christian may be a stranger to God, while the Gentile and one of a heathen nation may really know and love God. But where the distinction is it does involve serious consequences. It is a mistake to treat a Christian nation as though all its citizens enjoyed the favor of Heaven; and it is a mistake to address a Christian congregation as though all its members were devout men and women. Now, so long as a man is alienated from God, he is excluded from all the highest blessings of the gospel. The door of heaven is shut against the hard, the worldly, the impenitent. Surely some Church discipline should be exercised in regard to those whose alienation from God is undisguised. To keep up the name of Church-fellowship with people in this unhappy condition is to delude them with false hopes.
II. THE UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART ARE STRANGERS TO GOD. Even in the directions that concern the old Jewish ritual this class is named as well as that of the uncircumcised in flesh. The one great question is as to the state of a man's heart. The uncircumcised heart is given up to sinful naturalism. Pure human nature should be fit for the presence of God, but sinful human nature is not. Unclean and degraded, it needs a spiritual circumcision before it can be accepted by God. In the state of sin man is thus far from God, and so excluded from the privileges of enjoying heavenly Blessings. But the estrangement that results from this sinful condition involves a state of ignorance. Alienated from God, sinful man does not know his loss. He is out in the darkness, a heathen, though bearing the Christian name.
III. THE STRANGERS WHO ARE AS YET UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART MAY BECOME TRUE PEOPLE OF GOD AND ENJOY THE PRIVILEGE OF ACCESS TO GOD. The hindrance must first be removed.
1. There must be a change of heart. The mischief is in the heart; thither the cure must be brought. Thus the first thing is for a man to pray that God would create in him a clean heart (Psalms 51:10).
2. This can only be brought about by a Divine renewal, which may be called the circumcision of the heart. God, and he only, can create, and we need to be new creatures in Christ Jesus.
3. This may be realized through the gospel of Christ. He has come to call in the strangers. By his great all-embracing love he reconciles "them that are afar off" as well as "them that are near." There are now no barriers which the grace of Christ cannot break through. It only remains for the strangers and uncircumcised in heart to avail themselves of that grace by penitent confession of sin and active trust in Christ.