-No need for priest or temple or religious ceremony here. Again, everything we need in order to be accepted by God was accomplished in Christ, and is/was credited to us when we put our trust in Him.
-In this case, Paul mentions circumcision. In order to be truly [accepted as] one of God’s people, Judaism taught that, among other things, one needed to be circumcised, a physical cutting away of the foreskin, a religious ritual performed by human hands (cf Genesis 17.10-14). It was in fact a core component of the covenant God made with abraham and the nation which would issue forth from him. Not only did it delineate the people who had been 'chosen by God', but over the years it developed into a source of religious pride for the Jews, conditioned as they were to equate circumcision with being clean in God's eyes. All the other nations who were 'uncircumcised' came to be viewed as unclean, filthy foreskinned pagans who were to be avoided in any way possible (cf Acts 10.28, John 4.9). However, circumcision could only be performed on males, and ultimately it did nothing to effect true spiritual change. We find early on even among God's people that what is really needed is circumcision of the heart, a cutting away of the 'foreskin' of the heart which is otherwise diabolically devoted to self and sin (Deuteronomy 30.6). Now, in Christ, and by His Spirit (no hands!) God essentially cuts away a person's entire body of sin (the word means to wholly take it away) - man, woman, child, Jew and Gentile and pagan alike. In doing so God continues marking out who His people are, albeit not something which could be observed in strictly physical terms. But all this now happens in and centers on Christ.
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