On Sunday in my sermon on Genesis 17, I drew important parallels between circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, and baptism as the sign of the New Covenant.  Historically, credobaptists (those like me who believe that baptism should be reserved only for those who profess faith in Christ, i.e. not infants) have resisted those comparisons, but biblically and theologically, such resistance is neither justifiable nor necessary.  Baptists have also typically identified baptism as merely “an outward symbol of an inward change.”  As my sermon yesterday indicates, I believe that baptism is much more than that: it is the sign and seal of the New Covenant.  I suspect that most Reformed credobaptists who have become paedobaptists (who affirm infant baptism) do so because these two typical predobaptist positions are demonstrated to be unsustainable biblically and theologically, and so they may feel compelled to buy all of the paedobaptist arguments.  I hope to demonstrate here that we can affirm baptism as the sign and seal of the New Covenant without making what I believe are the paedobaptist errors.  While a full discussion of the biblical passages supporting and opposing the two perspectives on this passage would take much more than a mere blog post, I hope to contribute something that will be helpful in light of Sunday’s sermon on Genesis 17 (which can be listened to or downloaded here.  The manuscript which contains most of the sermon is attached at the bottom of this blog post for your benefit). 

My position is therefore that although there are significant continuities between the Abrahamic and New Covenants (and therefore the sign and seal of the respective covenants), there remain discontinuities between the covenants, as well as what I believe are compelling biblical arguments against the paedobaptist position that I do not think have ever been answered satisfactorily.

First, notice that it is not only the heads of households, the males, who are baptized, but all who call on Christ.  Under the Abrahamic, only heads of households, males were to receive the covenant sign.  That changed in the New Covenant.  Everyone is to receive the covenant sign.  If God intended baptism to correspond perfectly to circumcision, then there would still be no need for women to be baptized.  They would be part of the covenant by extension of their husbands and fathers.  The fact that we have no recorded controversy over whether women should be baptized or not suggests that the discontinuities between circumcision and baptism were so apparent that there was no need to explain the differences.

Second, there is no clear support for the baptism of infants in the New Testament.  Frequently you will hear from proponents of infant baptism, whom I love and respect dearly, three lines of alleged biblical support:

--1) they cite the household baptisms in Acts as support.  At first glance this seems like a strong case.  It is without question that children would be included in the household and in the household baptisms.  But that does not mean that infants were included in that claim. In fact, there is Scripture that suggests that infants must not have been included in that claim.  Look at Acts 16 with the story of the conversion of the Philippian jailer.  Starting in verse 30:  “Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." 32And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.”  Now so far that seems to say, well maybe infants were included, maybe not.  But then the next verse clarifies. 34 – “Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.”  His whole household rejoiced at objective fact.  Now I know children who will rejoice at objective facts.  But I don’t know infants who do.  Whomever is said to have been baptized is also said to rejoice over the gospel.  This excludes infants. 

--2) Another line of biblical support for infant baptism comes from Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that if there’s a believing woman in a home, that her children are holy.  That sounds like something covenantal.  Well whatever it means (that would be another blog post!), it isn’t ground for baptizing them, because that same verse also says that unbelieving husbands are made holy because of the woman’s faith, and no one is saying that they should baptize unbelieving husbands. 

--3) A final line is Luke 18:15-17/Matt. 19:14, where the disciples are turning away the infants that are being brought to Jesus.  “But Jesus called them to him, saying,  "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."  Does the kingdom of God belong to the unconverted?  No, the kingdom only belongs to the elect of God, which includes many but certainly not all baptized infants of covenant parents, and yet it does not belong to them until they are in Christ.

Third, the earliest non-canonical (i.e. not part of the Bible) document about the church known as the Didache contains two key elements that work against the claim of support for baptism in the early church.  While it is true that Origen claims that he was baptized as an infant in 180 AD, the Didache which dates to circa 100 AD contains explicit commands for the priority of immersion baptism, and only allows pouring water over the head for baptism as a last resort when more water is not available.  Further, there is no hint that baptism was given to infants, as both fasting and theological instruction was required in the Didache of those who wanted to be baptized prior to the reception of the covenant sign.  Because the Didache is considered by most to be something like a “New Members” guide to the teaching of the apostles, the absence of teaching on infants in the section on baptism mitigates against paedobaptist claims of early church support.  It is quite significant, in my opinion, that the first clear reference to infant baptism in all of church history is 180 AD is from my perspective a significant problem for the paedobaptist position.  It seems most likely based on this fact that paedobaptism emerged as a majority position sometime in the second century, but we have no recorded proof of such prior to 180 AD.  Further, our Reformed paedobaptist friends would find themselves very uncomfortable with much of what is said about baptism (other than who should receive it) by those in the early church who did defend infant baptism.  There is demonstrable confusion about the purpose and meaning of baptism by the early church in the second and third centuries (confusion which is not reflected in the Didache).

Fourth, one common support for seeing a continuity between the New Covenant and Old and Abrahamic covenants as it relates to children in the covenant is found in Peter’s statement in Acts 2:38-39 – “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’”  At first glance this may seem to be an open and shut case for the paedobaptists – the promise is for you and for your children.  But what is the promise that’s being made?  It’s that you will receive the Spirit IF you repent and are baptized.  Not to sound trite, but infants don’t repent.  To baptize an infant is to divorce baptism from repentance without biblical authorization, and in fact directly contrary to what is positively preached in the New Testament on repentance and baptism.  The promise is for those who repent, and that promise belongs not only to you and your children but also to all who are far off.  This is about the democratization of the Spirit, not a confirmation of covenant inclusion of infants. 

Fifth, our union with Christ in his death and resurrection is not only pictured in our baptism, but it is said to actually happen BY our baptism.  Romans 6:3-4 – “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  As I said on Sunday, Paul is not saying that we are saved by our baptism, but rather that Paul sees baptism as a synecdoche (a part representing the whole) for the entire conversion event, including regeneration, repentance, faith, justification, etc.  If this occurs in practice sometimes many years before an individual professes credible faith in Christ (whether 3 years or 50 years), it destroys this picture of what baptism is intended to demonstrate and represent.

Finally, there is something new at work in the New Covenant that draws a distinction with the Old, Mosaic Covenant.  The prophet Jeremiah (and the author of Hebrews following him) draws discontinuities between the Mosaic and New covenants and does not reference the Abrahamic covenant. But as we talked about Sunday, there are two trajectories or layers within the Abrahamic Covenant.  One layer becomes the Mosaic Covenant, made with Abraham’s immediate offspring, where earthly temporal fulfillment is contingent upon the obedience of the one in covenant with God and another layer that is made with the elect of God throughout history (because it is made with Christ, cf. Gal. 3:16) and becomes the New Covenant and is not contingent upon our personal obedience but upon the obedience of Christ.  Therefore recognizing that circumcision is not only the sign and seal of the Abrahamic Covenant but also of the Old, Mosaic Covenant, it is proper in this context to see the discontinuities between the Old and New Covenants as discontinuities between this temporal layer of the Abrahamic Covenant and the New.

So what are those discontinuities?  I’ve written a paper on this topic in seminary that will explain my position most thoroughly, so if you are interested in that I’ve attached that document to this blog post.  But I want to list the discontinuities here:

1)    Because one of the faults the author of Hebrews identifies is that people did not continue in the Old Covenant, the New will be different; all who are in the New covenant will persevere in it, whereas in the Old Covenant people fell away.  The New Covenant cannot be broken.  While it is true that there are those who fall away who have professed faith in Christ, the question remains whether they were truly in the covenant.  Did they participate in the community life of the covenant people, but does that make them part of the New Covenant?  This passage compels me to say, “no.” 

2)    In this New Covenant, God will write his laws on their hearts and minds, rather than only on tablets of stone.  Obedience will now come from new hearts.

3)    In the New Covenant, God will be merciful in such a way that he remembers their sins no more.  The sacrifices of the Old Covenant can never take away sins, but the sacrifice which ratified the New Covenant can and has done away with all the sins of the covenanters for whom Christ died.

4)    The knowledge of God will no longer come through mediators as it once did but will be personal.  This is accompanied in other places to include the promise of the Holy Spirit being with all the covenanters, rather than resting only on the mediators (prophets, priests, and kings).

5)    All people in the New Covenant will know God unlike in the Old. 

Let us know if you have any questions!