Infant Baptism Defended, Argument 6

6. Baptism has replaced circumcision, and therefore is rightfully and properly applied to the same subjects.

This is a subject I have written on its length. I will therefore not launch into a long defense of that statement. Instead let me briefly demonstrate the identity of the two sacramental seals by looking at what Paul says in Colossians 2:11. (What I have written can be found here.

In Colossians 2:11, Paul tells us, “in Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision done by Christ." Before we proceed, it is crucial to remember Paul's constant invective against those who insist that circumcision is necessary for Christians. It should be obvious then that whatever Paul is referring to here, he does not mean physical circumcision. Let's let Paul explain himself. How does he say we were circumcised by Christ? He says, “having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith.” The first word of verse 12 (συνταφεντες), is a participle describing the circumstances in which believers are circumcised. In other words, Paul is saying that we are circumcised with a spiritual circumcision (made without hands) with the circumcision of Christ and this is done by being baptized. It is common (based on Romans 6) to use burial as an illustration of baptism. Notice here though, that Paul uses burial as an illustration of circumcision. He says, “You were circumcised by having been buried…” Chrysostom clearly grasped this when he wrote, ”No longer, he saith, is the circumcision with the knife, but in Christ Himself; for no hand imparts this circumcision, as is the case there, but the Spirit. It circumciseth not a part, but the whole man. It is the body both in the one and the other case, but in the one it is carnally, in the other it is spiritually circumcised; but not as the Jews, for ye have not put off flesh, but sins. When and where? In Baptism.” (Homily 6 on Col.)

Therefore Paul concludes that in the New Covenant, our baptism is our circumcision. It identifies us with Christ’s death. This is why Paul so adamantly opposed the Judaizers who wished to impose circumcision upon Christians. Baptism is the sign of our having been circumcised in Christ. For this reason physical circumcision in the new covenant is unnecessary. Baptism identifies us with Christ's death and faith is the means by which we united to Christ.

Looking back on the first New Testament administration of the sacrament of baptism, we see Peter actually equate circumcision with baptism. How, you ask. Precisely because when Peter says, “the promise is to you and to your children, and all who are far off," he is using the exact same formula that God Himself used when He instituted the sacrament of circumcision in Genesis 17:7. And the Jews understood this clearly.

Let’s be clear about what we mean. We are not saying that in the Christian church circumcision was discontinued, or laid aside, and that baptism has now been brought in. We mean that baptism occupies the same place as the appointed ordinance in the church, and that as a sacrament it means the same thing. The meaning and design of circumcision was primarily spiritual. It was not solely, or even mainly, given in respect to the possession of Canaan and the temporal promises related to residents in that land. Circumcision was a sign and seal of a spiritual covenant which had more important blessings and promises that were conveyed through the Messiah, in whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed. The same is true for baptism.

Circumcision was a token of visible membership in the family of God and of covenant obligation to him. The same is true for baptism circumcision publicly ratified entrance into that visible family. Baptism does the same. Circumcision was an emblem strike that circumcision was a symbol of spiritual cleansing. So does baptism. Baptism refers to the remission of sins by the blood of Christ, and regeneration by his Holy Spirit. It teaches us that we are by nature guilty and depraved and need pardoning in sanctifying grace of God. Shirley we are on good ground when we assert that baptism has come in the place of circumcision. All evangelicals, whatever their convictions on this subject may be, are agreed that circumcision as a seal of the covenant has been discontinued. Granting that to be true, does not it stand to reason that a no other sign and seal must take its place? If baptism means the same pairing, seals the same covenant, and is a pledge of the same spiritual blessings, how can the identity of baptism with circumcision be disputed?

Infant Baptism Defended, Argument 5

5. If infants were once members, and the Church remains the same, then they are still members, unless some positive divine enactment excluding them can be found.

It was a positive divine enactment which brought them in and gave them a place in the Church. Unless we can find a positive divine enactment casting them out of the church into which they were placed under the Old Testament administration of the covenant of grace, then we are not only justified in assuming that they still have a place, but we err greatly in assuming that they don't. I challenge anyone to produce such an act of repeal and exclusion. We have already demonstrated the identity of the church under both administrations. Scripture clearly teaches the perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant. In this covenant, not merely the lineal descendants of Abraham, but all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. We do not find even the slightest hint in the New Testament that this high privilege granted to the infant children of believers is, or ever was withdrawn.

Opponents of infant baptism nearly always resort to an appeal about the lack of a New Testament warrant for the practice. The advocates of infant baptism are under no obligation to produce an express warrant in the New Testament for the membership of the children of believers. That warrant was given in the most formal and express terms possible 2,000 years before the New Testament was written. It has never been revoked and therefore firmly remains and is indisputably still in force.

It is truly lamentable that our Baptist brothers cannot be prevailed upon to see the length and breadth of this fact. There were little babies, 8 days old, fully and publicly acknowledged as members of the covenant community - a community consecrated to God - and stamped with a covenant seal by which they were formally bound as the seed of believers to be entirely and forever the Lord's. I don't see how infant baptism and infant membership in the church can be ridiculed without impugning the wisdom of God who was with “his church in the wilderness, and whose ways are all wise and righteous” (Acts 7:38).

There are two mistakes that are likely to be made regarding members of the covenant under the Old Testament administration of the Covenant of Grace:

1. Presume all were saved

2. Presume most weren't

As I never tire of saying: Covenant is not co-extensive with election. But, God is faithful to His covenant promise to be a God to us and our offspring. None of the Old Testament narrative books appear to work on the assumption that that the sins of Israel's and Judah's kings was to be simply expected because they were unregenerate. It is always, always cast in the language of unfaithfulness to God. The cases of reprobation in the covenant community are not there to undermine our trust in God's promise to be ours and our children's God.

Mistake #1 equates covenant with election. Scripture flatly repudiates this. Mistake #2 emphasizes the cases of reprobation (Cain, Esau, etc.) to the detriment of God's promise. We therefore admit that covenant is not co-extensive with election, nevertheless, we do not let this fact become so big in our eyes as to undermine our confidence in God's covenant promise.

Infant Baptism Defended, Argument 4

4. Everyone acknowledges that the infant seed of the people of God were members of the church, equally with their parents, under the Old Testament administration. Yet it is equally certain that the church of God is the same in substance now as it was then. Of course, it is just as reasonable and proper in principle, that the infant offspring of professed believers should be members of the church now as it was that they should been members of that ancient church.

The only way around this logic is to deny the identity of the Church of God under the old administration of the covenant of grace with the New Testament church. There is no other way to go. One must assert that the Church of God under the Old Testament economy is not the same, but is so essentially different that the same principles cannot apply to each. Due to the poisonous influence of Dispensationalism in contemporary evangelicalism, many people are perfectly happy to make that assertion. It never ceases to amaze me how people can hold this view while claiming to take the New Testament seriously. Every single one of the promises God has made to his New Testament church, is to be found in substance somewhere in the Old Testament. The New Testament writers constantly take Old Testament promises God made to Israel and apply them to the New Testament Church. If the two bodies are not in essence the same, then this is illegitimate. This is tantamount to an attempt to prosecute someone in the United States for behavior which is perfectly legal in the United States, but is illegal in Zimbabwe, or vice versa. There is no conceivable basis on which to make this work. The only grounds on which an Old Testament promise can be applied to a New Testament believer is if we take it for granted that both Old Testament believers and New Testament believers are living under the same covenant of grace, despite the fact that it was administered in two different ways.

Let’s face it, Scripture plainly teaches the perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant. This is a detail so clear, it is unbelievable that any believer of the Bible can call the fact into question. If Galatians doesn’t at least teach us this, it teaches us nothing. Everything essential to establishing the identity of the Old Testament and New Testament churches is found in Scripture. They have the same Head, the same covenant, the same spiritual design, the same atoning blood and the same sanctifying Spirit. Below is a chart exhibiting what I have just asserted regarding the identity of the Old and New Testament Church:

Titles/Features                                       Old Testament Believers                                       New Testament Believers

1. Saints                                                 (Num. 16:3; Deut. 33:3)                                          ( Eph. 1:1; Rom. 1:7)

2. Elect                                                   (Deut. 7:6,7; 14:2)                                                   (Col. 3:12; Tit. 1:1)

3. Beloved                                              (Deut. 7:7)                                                               (Col. 3:12; 1 Thess. 1:4)

4. Called                                                 (Isa. 41:9; 43:1)                                                       (Rom. 1:6, 7; 1 Cor. 1:2)

5. Church                                               (Ps. 89:5; Mic. 2:5{LXX})                                     ( Ac. 7:38; 20:28;  Heb. 2:12; Eph. 1:1)

6. Flock                                                  (Eze. 34; Ps. 77:20)                                                 (Luke 12:32; 1 Pet. 5:2)

7. Holy Nation                                       (Ex. 19:5, 6)                                                             (1 Pet. 2:9)

8. Kingdom of Priests                            (Ex. 19:5, 6)                                                             (1 Pet. 2:9)

9. Peculiar Treasure                               (Ex. 19:5, 6)                                                             (1 Pet. 2:9)

10. God’s People                                   (Hos. 1:9, 10)                                                          (1 Pet. 2:9)

11. Holy People                                    (Deut. 7:6 )                                                              (1 Pet. 1:15, 16)

12. People of Inheritance                       (Deut. 4:20)                                                             (Eph 1:18)

13. God Dwells w/ Them                      (Lev. 26:12)                                                             (John 1:14)

14. God Walks Among Them                (Lev. 26:12)                                                             (2 Cor. 6:16-18)

15. 12 Patriarchs/Apostles                    (Gen. 49)                                                                 (Mat.10:1; Eph.2:20)

16. Christ Married to Them    (Isa. 54:4; Jer. 3:14; Hos. 2:19; Jer. 6:2, 31:32)                   (Eph. 5:22, 23; 2 Cor. 11:2)

Furthermore, in writing to the Galatians (4:1-6), Paul formally compares the covenant people of God under the Old Testament administration to an underage heir. In Hebrews 4:2, referring to the children of Israel, the inspired author writes, “Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them.” In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, Paul declares, “they That did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ.” Jesus himself tells us in John 8:56, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it, and was glad.” In the light of all of these factors, we are fully justified in saying that the Old Testament believers were indeed not only a church, but a Gospel Church, a church of Christ built on the same foundation.

But Romans 11 puts the subject past debate. This passage places the identity of the Church under both administrations in the clearest light. This is a remarkably decisive passage. The Church of God is held forth to us under the imagery of an olive tree. What makes this so remarkable is that this is the same designation the Lord used to picture his Church in Jeremiah 11. Jeremiah says to God’s covenant people, “The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit’” (v. 16a). The prophet then declaims against the covenant people’s forsaking the Lord in the 2^nd half of verse 16. Jeremiah declares, “But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed.” I challenge you to compare the language of this passage with the language of the apostle in Romans 11, especially verses 15 – 24, which reads:

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

There can be no doubt that Paul is speaking here of the Old Testament Church under the figure of a good olive tree. Everyone acknowledges this, even the Baptists who deny the identity of the church in the Old and New Testaments. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle says concerning this olive tree, that the natural branches (i.e. the Jews) were broken off because of unbelief. But what is the consequence of this excision? Was the tree destroyed? Not at all! In fact, Paul teaches the exact opposite. Paul teaches that the Gentile believers, wild by nature, were grafted into the good olive tree, i.e. the same tree from which the natural branches had been broken off. What tree was this but the Old Testament Church? I fail to see how Paul could have argued the identity of the church under the two administrations any more clearly.

But not only that: Paul also tells us that the Jews will be brought back from their rebellious rejection of Christ and will be incorporated with the Christian church. How is he described as restoration? He calls it a grafting in again into their own olive tree. In other words, the tree into which Gentile Christians were grafted was the old olive tree of which the ancient covenant people of God were the natural branches. This means that when the Jews shall be brought in with the fullness of the Gentiles into the Christian church, they will be grafted back into their old olive tree! If the church of God before the coming of Christ and the church of God after the coming of Christ were completely distinct and separate bodies then it would be an abuse of terms to represent the Jews, after conversion to Christianity, as being grafted in again to their own olive tree.

Infant Baptism Defended, Argument 3

3. The very fact of the church membership of infants in the Old Testament economy is a clear indication of God's will in the regard to this matter. To say that God does not will infants to be members of His visible kingdom is a hard sell, especially considering the fact that Scripture gives us over 2,000 years of it clearly on display in the Old Testament administration of the covenant of grace.

Whatever doubts we may entertain about the status of Old Testament believers, one thing is most definitely clear: the infant children of these believers were in fact members of the church under this administration of the covenant of grace. As such they were the regular subjects of the covenant seal: circumcision.

When God called Abraham and established the covenant with him, not only did he embrace Abraham's infant seed in very clear terms, but He also appointed an ordinance by which this relation of all his children to the visible church was to be publicly ratified and sealed, and this when they were only 8 days old. This covenantal church membership of believers was a self-perpetuating scheme. Every child who was circumcised, that is who received the covenant seal impressed upon their flesh, received it from the hands of adults who had been brought into the covenant themselves when they were but 8 days old. The New Testament explicitly teaches by the inspiration of God Himself, that circumcision was “the seal of the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:11). Those who view circumcision as being merely a pledge of possession of Canaan and the enjoyment of temporal prosperity in the Promised Land sell the covenant seal short. It was a sign and seal of God’s promise in which “all the families of the earth were to be blessed.”

Let’s step away for a moment and consider how profound the theological implications of the covenant of grace were under the Old Testament administration. One merely has to read Paul’s epistle to the Romans to see this. Paul argues conclusively in that epistle that the covenant of grace exhibited in the New Testament Christian church is exactly the same covenant of grace God established with Abraham. In Galatians, Paul goes so far as to say that if you are in Christ, regardless of your ethnic derivation, you are a child of Abraham according to the promise (Gal. 3:29). And let me hasten to remind the reader that Galatians was not written to ethnic Jews. Calling these Greek Gentiles believers “offspring of Abraham” is a monumentally significant theological statement. It goes to the very heart of how Christians should read the Old Testament. It either applies to us with equal force and relevance as it did to the Jews who lived under that administration of the covenant of grace, or it is utterly irrelevant and useless for Christians. Few, if any, Christians would ever publicly and openly espouse such a radical position. But what difference does that make if, as is typical in evangelicalism, the Old Testament is relegated to realm of legend? Even among those who swear by the plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, many can be found who absolutely ignore or neglect the Old Testament, which amounts to the same thing as rejecting its relevance.

Now, let’s return to what we were looking at the moment ago. God appointed a covenant seal to ratify this promise and to signify His faithfulness to it. This covenant seal was not appointed by God as some dark, esoteric, mysterious secret initiation rite by which only well-informed adult initiates, after having solemnly received the seal, could be admitted into the covenant relationship. Not on your life. God appointed this covenant sign to be administered, and it actually was administered for nearly 2000 years to infants, only 8 days old, as a sign and token of their relation to God's covenant family and as a sign of their right to the privileges of that covenant. Now we ask the burning question: If God in His infinite wisdom saw that it was right that infants should be made the subjects of the “seal of the righteousness of faith” before they were capable of exercising faith, why should a transaction the same in substance, not be right and suitable now?

Infant Baptism Defended, Argument 2

2. The natural, close, and loving relationship which exists between parents and children provides a strong argument in favor of the church membership of the infant children of believers. Once their membership is conceded, any opposition to the public acknowledgement of it by the seal of baptism vanishes, for it follows as a necessary consequence. One cannot be a member while being denied the seal of said membership.

It seems to me that nature itself pleads the case of children in this regard. Across the globe, across all eras of time, across all cultures, races, and languages, the natural bond between parents and their offspring is daily manifested. Are we to believe then, that in the Church (which is the ultimate family) this bond of love is nonexistent or suppressed?

Can the stem be in the church, and the branch be out of it? Is it possible that the parent, while he is in the visible kingdom of God, his children: bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, - have no connection to it at all? This is not the case in any other society in the entire world!

No civil society operates on this principle. Children are born citizens of the nation in which their parents resided at the time of their birth. By virtue of their birth they are plenary citizens. This means they are bound by all the duties, and entitled to all the privileges of that citizenship whenever they become capable of exercising them. They can never lose the privileges of their citizenship except by the commission of a crime. So why should this great principle which God has so deeply and permanently implanted in all human relations be set aside in the church of God? Why should it be less powerful in grace than it is in nature?