There are two opposite tendencies ever at work in human nature to corrupt religion. One is of the intellect; the other of the senses. The one is the temptation of the cultured few; the other, that of the vulgar many. The one turns religion into theological speculation; the other, into a theatrical spectacle. But, opposite as these tendencies usually are, they were united in that strange chaos of erroneous opinion and practice which Paul had to front at Colossæ. From right and from left he was assailed, and his batteries had to face both ways. Here he is mainly engaged with the error which insisted on imposing circumcision on these Gentile converts. I. To this teaching of the necessity of circumcision, he first opposes the position that all Christian men, by virtue of their union with Christ, have received the true circumcision, of which the outward rite was a shadow and a prophecy, and that therefore the rite is antiquated and obsolete. His language is emphatic and remarkable. It points to a definite past time--no doubt the time when they became Christians--when, because they were in Christ, a change passed on them which is fitly paralleled with circumcision. This Christian circumcision is described in three particulars: as "not made with hands;" as consisting in "putting off the body of the flesh;" and as being "of Christ." It is "not made with hands," that is, it is not a rite but a reality, not transacted in flesh but in spirit. It is not the removal of ceremonial impurity, but the cleansing of the heart. This idea of ethical circumcision, of which the bodily rite is the type, is common in the Old Testament, as, for instance, "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart ... to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" (Deut. xxx. 6). This is the true Christian circumcision.