Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision.
Remembrance of our miserable condition by nature
It is good to be reminded of this, for it is
(1) a ground of meekness towards others;
(2) of stirring up groans;
(3) of tasting the benefits of redemption;
(4) of provoking to fruitfulness;
(5) it is the ground of a holy blush, with which all must walk before God;
(6) it is also a special furtherance of God’s glory, which cannot be safe if His works are not had in remembrance. (Paul Bayne.)
Miseries of a pagan condition, a motive to missionary zeal
I. The affecting condition described.
1. Upon his understanding.
2. Consider this subject as it affects the conscience. “The whole world is guilty before God” (Rom_3:19).
3. As it affects the character. Where Christ is not, morality sheds but a dim, a feeble, and Often a delusive ray.
4. As it relates to the happiness of man in the present life. Without Christ, you leave man as a sufferer under all the unmitigated weight of trouble; you leave him to grapple, unaided and unsustained, with the fierce and uncontrollable calamities of life.
5. Trace its operation on the civil and religious institutions of human society.
6. Consider the relation of the subject to the immortal destiny of man. To live without Christ is dreadful; but oh! what must it be to die without Him?
II. The duty of cherishing a distinct and constant remembrance of this condition.
1. The light of reason, and the custom of mankind, are sufficient to Show that we should cherish the grateful remembrance of eminent deliverances.
2. The express direction of Holy Scripture. On the Jewish Church such recollection was frequently and solemnly inculcated (Exo_13:3; see also Deu_5:15).
3. We may appeal to the impulse of good feeling in every mind that is rightly, by which I mean religiously, constituted.
III. The practical effects which should flow from this remembrance.
1. This recollection should be productive of deep humiliation and self-abasement.
2. This recollection should excite sentiments of the liveliest gratitude for the happy change which has taken place in our condition.
3. This recollection should endear to us our native land, which the religion of Jesus has hallowed and blessed.
4. This recollection should engage us to demean ourselves in a manner answerable to the great change which, through the favour of God, has taken place in our moral situation.
5. This recollection should excite in our bosoms the tenderest compassion for those nations who are yet without Christ, deeply plunged in all the miseries of which we have been hearing.
6. Finally, this recollection will supply the amplest justification of missionary efforts, and urge us forward in the prosecution of missionary labours. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Remembrance of former sinful state
I. Show what uncircumcision denotes.
1. Rebellion (Jer_9:25-26).
2. Exclusion from the privileges of God’s chosen (Eph_2:12).
3. Pollution (Eze_44:7).
4. Liableness to death (Gen_17:4).
II. The ends for which believers should remember their former state of sin.
1. To create shame and self-abhorrence (Eze_16:60).
2. To create renewed views of Christ and His salvation (1Ti_1:13).
3. To remind us of the awful state of the ungodly (1Co_6:9-11).
4. To exclude boasting (Deu_9:6-7).
5. As a motive to forgive others (Eph_4:22).
6. As a motive to relieve the distressed (1Co_8:9).
7. To increase our love to God. (H. Foster, M. A.)
Conversion a great change
“If I ever see a Hindoo converted to Jesus Christ,” said Henry Martyn, “I shall see something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have ever yet seen.” The entire number of native Christians in India is now about 600,000.
Then and now
Can you say, “I am not what I once was--I am better, godlier, holier”? Happy are you! Happy although, afraid of presumption, and in the timid modesty of spiritual childhood, you can venture no further than one who was urged to say whether she had been converted. How humble, yet how satisfactory, her reply! “That,” she answered, “I cannot, that I dare not, say; but there is a change somewhere. I am changed, or the world is changed.”…Our little child, watching with curious eyes the apparent motion of the objects, calls out in ecstasy, and bids us see how hedge and house are flying past the carriage. You know it is not these that move; nor the firm and fixed shore, with its trees and fields, and boats at anchor, and harbours and headlands, that is gliding by the cabin windows. That is but an illusion of the eye. The motion is not in them, but in us. And if the world is growing less to your sight, it shows you are retreating from it, rising above it, and, upborne in the arms of grace, are ascending to a higher region; and if to our eye the fashion of this world seems passing away, it is because we ourselves are passing--passing and pressing on the way to heaven. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
