The image here can easily be missed, especially if the pudency of traditional translations substitutes the word “uncircumcision” for “foreskin.” Paul seems not to mean simply that his readers were once uncircumcised in body, but that their flesh itself (as opposed to spirit) constituted a “foreskin” that was removed by a circumcision not accomplished by hand, baptism into Christ and the new covenant (vv. 11–12 above).
And see Romans
