The Covenant Sign | Genesis 17:1-14 & Colossians 2:11-12 | Marked by Grace
In this fifth message of our Everlasting Covenant series, Pastor Mark Groen preaches from Genesis 17:1–14 and Colossians 2:11–12, exploring how God marked His people under the old covenant and how that sign is fulfilled in Christ.
God commanded Abraham to circumcise his household as a visible sign that they belonged to Him. This sign pointed forward to the greater reality of salvation in Jesus Christ, who cuts away the sin of His people through His life, death, and resurrection.
In the new covenant, baptism now serves as the covenant sign—marking believers and their children as belonging to God. It’s not a magical act but a declaration of grace, reminding us that God reaches out to us before we could ever reach for Him.
As Pastor Mark reminds us, “The covenant sign means that when we step into the world, we wear our faith as our identity. We stand out not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Christ has done for us.”
📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Sermon
Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us. Have you ever gone to a large sporting event that was an away game for your favorite team? Now, obviously, none of you are across the pond watching the Vikings this morning because you're here. That would be an extreme trip. But I know most of you have been to lots of Vikings and Twins home games. But have you ever made your way into enemy territory? Now, I've done this many times in multiple stadiums. And from conversations I've had with others, what I'm about to describe to you is a pretty universal experience. When you make your way into the stadium with the opposing team's gear on, you become a little self-conscious. You feel like everybody is looking at you. And maybe they aren't, but there are some more obvious looks from some of the opposing fans. It's not that they are unfriendly necessarily or anything like that, but rather a genuine curiosity about, why are you here? Where have you come from?
I've always been treated very well prior to a game, but after the game, I've had some different experiences. If my team wins, the comments are usually that my team still stinks and they're going to lose next time. When I was at a White Sox and guardians game a few years back, after the guardians won in extra innings, the fan in front of me turned around and said, Oh, yeah, well, at least my team didn't have to change their name. Deep, deep cutting insult, sir. But when my team loses, usually there's a little bit of scorn that comes my way because of the attire I have chosen to wear. But there's also something fun that happens in these experiences. You stand out as a displaced fan, but so do all your fellow fans, right? People you wouldn't have noticed at all in any other setting now stand out to you. You end up having conversations with these folks, and you may exchange impromptu high fives with these folks. And I've even seen this happen outside of the situation of a game. Last year, I was in Birmingham, Alabama, at a music festival. It was during the baseball playoffs.
I saw the baseball cap of a fellow Cleveland Guardian's fan. And after that, every time we ran into each other, we made sure we knew what was happening. We also talked about the team together, even after neither one of us was wearing our caps anymore. We recognized each other. We knew one another as fans of our team. The gear that we wore marked us. It made our loyalty visible to each other, but also to the world. So as we continue through looking at our reformed understanding of covenant, we come to Genesis 17, and we see that God put a visible mark on Abraham and his descendants. He gave them a covenant sign that marked them out, and it made them stand out from the world around them. It was a sign saying, These are the people that I have set apart. And this covenant sign was significant, not because of the act of circumcision itself, but because of the promise that God placed upon that covenant sign. And so today we're going to look at Genesis 17, and we're going to look at Colossians 2, and we're going to see how God has always marked his people and how that is fulfilled in Christ and how it still has profound meaning for us as New Covenant believers.
Now, before we look at the covenant sign in Genesis 17, this passage, before we get to the gives us a good way to set up our context here of Genesis 17. The passage that we read from this morning tells us that Abraham is 99 years old, and that is an important fact. This is not just some random piece of information to Moses as he gives it to us here. It's meant to cue us in to the passage of time. It's meant to remind us how much time has passed since the initial promise was made to Abraham. Back in Genesis 12, Abraham was 75 years old. He was told that he would be the father of a great nation. Then in Genesis 15, which we looked at a few weeks ago, that promise was reaffirmed. And now we come to chapter 17, and he's 99 years old. God was making sure here as he inspired Moses to write this down, that we understand how this promise is going to be kept. This isn't going to be Abraham or Abram at this point that is doing it because Abram is old. And on top of it, Sarah is barren and she is long beyond childbearing ears.
If God came to you and he promised you that you would have a child, you would likely go out and buy some diapers, a stroller, a crib, and you would expect that child to show up in nine months or so. You would not expect 24 years to pass. Think about waiting for anything that long, much less a child when your wife has been bearing her whole life and you're old and she's old. Most of us struggle to wait while our microwave finishes our popcorn. But Abraham had to wait 24 years to have this reaffirmation of the promise of a son. Here God appears to him. He calls him to walk before him and to be blameless. Again, he promises to make a covenant with him and to multiply him. And Abraham responds by falling on his face. He knows who he's talking to, and that he is in no position to make demands. Abram has a response here, and it shows us here in this text that God responds to his humility and his submission by affirming the promise that he made 24 years ago. He tells Abraham that he will be the father of a multitude of nations.
And then the Lord changes his name from Abraham to Abraham. Now, this seems like a pretty insignificant change to us, but it is actually very significant because Abram was a name that meant exaltet father. And it's likely not a reference to Abram, but to Abram's father, his father, Tara. But Abraham sounds like a Hebrew expression that means father of a multitude of nations. The name Abraham looks to the past, it looks to his father. Abraham is a new name, and it points to the future. Here. It points to the promise that God has made to him. As the passage continues, God reminds Abraham that he is in covenant with him. Here we see that it's going to be an everlasting covenant. He is going to be a God to him and to his children. Now, I know I remind you of this all the time, but we need to read that sentence with the absolute absurdity of it in mind. A 99-year-old man with an 89-year-old wife who has been barren her whole life was just told that he would have a child. Don't let the outrageous nature of that statement slip by you because you've heard the story in Sunday school since you were four.
It is an absurdity. Abraham has this fresh new name, and he is standing there with all the aches and the pain planes that come with 99 trips around the sun. Abraham likely has poor vision, and Abraham likely needs a lot of naps every day. But he is believing God for this promise. He is trusting that the one that he has just fallen on his face in front of is powerful enough to overcome the dead womb of his wife. As God confirms this covenant, he tells Abraham to be circumcised and to circumcise those in his family who come after him. Now, this is a strange covenant sign to us. Why was circumcision the sign of the covenant? Well, it wasn't just a random ritual that God imposed upon them. It was given to mark his people in a way that would point them to his promise and pointed them to what was coming in the future. Remember the story of Genesis? The whole point is that we're following this genetic line. There when Adam and Eve fell into sin in chapter 3 of Genesis, God came and promised that one would come who would crush the head of the serpent.
God told his people to be circumcised because it was a sign that was related to that promise. Remember, it is a promise It's related to offspring. It would come through the seed of the woman. And so the Messiah, the one who will crush the head of the serpent, is going to come through the offspring of Abraham. And so the covenant sign is consecrating the reproductive process. That's why circumcision. And one interesting point about the command here is that it was to be done when the child was eight days old. You see, circumcision was not necessarily unique in the ancient Middle East. Other nations did it, but they practiced it as a rite of passage at puberty. But the descendants of Abraham were commanded to do this with infants. It makes it clear that being a part of the covenant promise is not about choice or maturity, but God's graciously bringing his people to himself. The children of Abraham are to be set apart at the very beginning. It served as a visible sign that the children belong to God and that they were to be raised in covenant with him. In this passage, we also see that the covenant sign wasn't optional.
Any male who refused it was to be cut off from the people. That is deliberate language. It is saying that if you won't receive the cutting of circumcision, you will be cut off from the covenant. The covenant sign here carried both a blessing and a warning. It was a mark of belonging, but it also pointed to the judgment that sin deserves. Blood is shed in circumcision. It reminded the people of what we saw a few weeks back when we looked at Hebrews 9: 22, that without the shedding of blood, There's no forgiveness of sins. The act of circumcision was also pointing forward to the blood that would one day be shed by the Lord Jesus Christ for his covenant people. As we move forward into the New Testament passage, we read here why Paul tells the people in the Colossian church that circumcision pointed to something greater. You see, circumcision itself was not the final answer. It was pointing to something far greater. In Jesus, the covenant people of God would one day receive a true circumcision, not one done with hands, but the cutting away of sin that comes through the work accomplished for the people of God in the Messiah's life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Just as circumcision marked the children of Abraham, baptism is now the The covenant sign that marks the people of God in the new covenant. It's an external sign that points us to the inward reality of our union with Christ. As we wrap up, it It's important that we pause and notice what this covenant sign of baptism means for us in the new covenant. You see, this is what we see here from Colossians. This is why as reformed Christians, we baptize not only those who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we also baptize the children of believers because Paul makes the connection for us here in Colossians 2. Just as circumcision, mark the children of Abraham as being among the covenant people, baptism now marks believers and their children as belonging to the new covenant community. We don't bring our children to the baptismal fount because we believe that there's something magical in that water that saves them. Because circumcision didn't save in the Old Covenant. Remember the stories of Cora, the stories of King Saul, the story of David's son Absalom? Each one of those men were circumcised. They bore the sign of the covenant, yet each died in rebellion against God.
We baptize our children because like Abraham's descendants, we believe that God's promises extend to us and to our children. Baptism is a visible declaration that we and our children are a part of God's covenant family, and these children are to be raised to know and to love the Lord. It is a sign of grace and a reminder that God reaches out to us because we can't reach out to him on our own. It acknowledges that we are all helpless apart from the Holy spirit coming to us and giving us the gift of faith. It is essential that we remember this, not just as we look at our covenant children. Your baptism, it continues to speak a word of grace to you. It says that you belong to Christ, that you have been marked by his promise. The old self has You have been washed away, and you have been raised to him in newness of life. Even if you were baptized before you could remember a word that was spoken that day, if you have faith in Christ, You can know that God has been faithful to you through that covenant promise, that he has saved you by his grace.
The covenant sign of baptism then is an important part of how we live as believers. It means that when we step out into the world, we are wearing our faith as an identity. Just as Abraham and his descendants were marked as belonging to God, and just as fans of sports teams wear their team colors and stand out in enemy territory, we live in a world that isn't going to always understand or welcome us as believers. But we need to walk boldly as Christ's own because the covenant sign is not a mark of shame. It is a mark of grace. As you step into the world this week, remember not only who you are, but whose you are. You've been marked as Christ's own by the covenant sign of God's promise to his covenant people. As a Christian, you stand out. It isn't because of something you've done, but because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you. When you find others that have that same mark of faith, you'll recognize something familiar. You share not only the mark of the covenant sign, but you share the same covenant promise. You are on the same team.
You've been redeemed by the blood of Christ. You have been sealed by the Holy spirit. You members of God's family. In the same way, Abraham believed and trusted God. May we leave from here today trusting in that promise salvation that we have in Christ. And may this cause us to live holy lives as those set apart and marked by his grace. Leave from here remembering your baptism and God's faithfulness in it. Rejoice in the everlasting covenant that he has made with you and with his people, and show the world that you belong to a great covenant keeping king. Amen. Let us pray. Great and merciful God, we are so thankful for the grace that you have bestowed upon us. We thank you that you have marked us, that you have claimed us, that we can know that we are Christ zone. We pray that we would remember our baptisms, that as we leave from here, we remember that mark that we wear from you. May we remember that it unites us not only to Christ, but to one another. And may we serve you in Holiness, that you might be glorified in the work of your covenant people.
It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc. Org.
Key Themes:
God gave Abraham a visible sign—circumcision—to mark His people as belonging to Him and to point forward to His promise in Christ.
The sign showed that covenant membership was based on God’s grace, not human effort or maturity.
Circumcision itself did not save; it pointed to the need for a deeper, spiritual renewal fulfilled in Jesus.
In the new covenant, baptism is the sign that marks believers and their children as part of God’s covenant family.
Those marked by grace are called to live boldly as Christ’s own, remembering their baptism and rejoicing in God’s faithfulness.
Scripture: Genesis 17:1-14 & Colossians 2:11-12
