For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything. Whether you be Jew or Gentile matters nothing; neither brings you nearer Christ. What is of importance is a new creature, i.e, a soul regenerated in baptism, and fortified by grace to walk in newness of life. Cf. Revelation 3:14, where Christ is called "the beginning of the creation of God," and Isaiah 9:6, where He is called "the Father of the world that is to be " (Vulg.), for from Him began a new creation. Cf. too Virgil (Ecl. iv8), where Virgil transfers to Salonius, the newly born son of Asinius Pollio, Roman Consul, the predictions by the Cumæan Sibyl of the birth of Christ, in which the Christian era is described as a golden age.
Do you see the power of the cross, to what a height it has raised the apostle? For not only has it made all the things of the world dead to him, but it has set him far above the older way of life. What equals the strength of the cross? Paul at one time was willing to be slain and to slay others for the cause of circumcision. Now he has been persuaded by the cross to let circumcision fall to the level of uncircumcision. Now he seeks new and strange things which are above the heavens. By the new creation he means our own new way of life, both on account of what is past and what is to come. We are renewed by what is past, because our soul, having grown old in sin, has been immediately renewed by baptism. It is as if recreated again that we seek a new and heavenly way of life. We are being renewed by what is to come, because the heaven and the earth and all creation will be changed into incorruption along with our own bodies.
Observe the power of the Cross, to what a pitch it has raised him! not only has it put to death for him all mundane affairs, but has set him far above the Old Dispensation. What can be comparable to this power? For the Cross has persuaded him, who was willing to be slain and to slay others for the sake of circumcision, to leave it on a level with uncircumcision, and to seek for things strange and marvellous and above the heavens. This our rule of life he calls a new creature, both on account of what is past, and of what is to come; of what is past, because our soul, which had grown old with the oldness of sin, has been all at once renewed by baptism, as if it had been created again. Wherefore we require a new and heavenly rule of life. And of things to come, because both the heaven and the earth, and all the creation, shall with our bodies be translated into incorruption. Tell me not then, he says, of circumcision, which now avails nothing; (for how shall it appear, when all things hav...
