To a Thousand Generations: Infant Baptism - Covenant Mercy to the Children of God

by Douglas Wilson

The real origin of nominalism is to be found in all churches that refuse to discipline in terms of their baptism, whatever their practice of baptism may be.

because there appears to be no explicit baptism of an infant in the New Testament, the debate roars on unimpeded. After all, could not a covenantal shift to “believer’s baptism” be seen and understood as an administrative change?

Only after a theology of parenthood is understood may we properly turn to a discussion of covenantal baptism. When it comes to childrearing, between the Old and New Testaments there is total and complete continuity on the subject of godly parenting. There is no discontinuity. It needs to be emphasized again that there is continuity in the promises of God with regard to parenting

One of the problems in the entire debate over baptism has been the natural mistake of deriving the doctrine of the covenant from our doctrine of baptism, instead of beginning with the doctrine of the covenant, and then proceeding to discuss baptism.

Water baptism does not regenerate, it does not save, and it does not cleanse. So why should we apply it to infants then? Now that is a good question.

They shall be My people, and I will be their God; then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. (Jer. 32:38–40)

Now the historical/grammatical approach to Scripture rightly requires us to seek to understand words as the first readers or listeners understood them. And how would Peter’s listeners have heard him? Given his choice of words, what did Peter want them to think? Unlike many modern believers, they knew their Old Testaments. If anyone at that time had seriously maintained this meant the children of believers were now to be excluded unless they came into the covenant on their own as a separate individual, this would have been, in the first century, an incomprehensible doctrine.

as the history of the church revealed in Acts shows, their central debate was over whether or not the Gentiles had to include their children in the New Covenant by means of circumcision—their debate was not whether the Jewish Christians had to start excluding their children.

Never considered that all the debates surrounding circumcision would also obviously include circumcision of children, but of course they would, it is unlikely that there would have been talk of circumcising only those with a credible profession of faith

The New Testament recognizes that children of believers are holy ones or saints. We are taught that children of at least one believing parent are holy ones. This does not guarantee that each child is personally holy, but rather teaches that they are federally holy, or, put another way, covenantally holy.

Paul expands the promise of this covenant from the covenant children of the land to the covenant children of the earth. Gentile children are therefore included in the covenant.

The church should have baptized the infant with the stated expectation that the child must come to the Lord’s Supper when he is able to discern the Lord’s body (coming to the table is not optional), and that the child cannot discern the Lord’s body without individual, confessed faith in the Lord. In a biblical paedobaptist church, if a baptized child grows up and refuses to profess his faith in the Lord Jesus, that child must be removed from the church. Why? Because it is gross sin for the elders of a church to tolerate members who are known to be in rebellion against God.

Circumcision began with the promise, to use Paul’s terms, and not with the law. It is part of the promise to Abraham, and was not instituted at Sinai.

Romans 4 is incredibly pertinent here

First, the Bible teaches that the Levitical administration of the covenant was fleshly (Heb. 9:10); the New Covenant administration is spiritual (Heb. 9:11).

The New Covenant is a ministry of worldwide salvation. It is efficacious, and the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Heb. 8:11).

Extreme dispensationalists think the scaffolding was a separate outbuilding which God tore down, and will, in the very near future, rebuild for some reason.

Moses left Egypt to be with Christ. The people of Israel drank from the Rock that was Christ. They circumcised their children into Christ.

The baptistic assumption is that the covenants are unlike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. All New Covenant members are regenerate. The paedobaptist assumption is that the covenants are alike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. Some New Covenant members are regenerate, some are not.

the New Testament sternly warns Christians against the same sin of unbelief which afflicted the Jews. “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it” (Heb. 3:19–4:1).

Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28–29; cf. Heb. 2:1–3).

Clearly there are covenant members who do not believe

And if this is the tree of the covenant, then the point stands.

If the tree is the covenant, and they can be cut off via unbelief, then clearly unregenerate covenant membership is still a part of the New Covenant. Otherwise, how would they be “grafted in” in the first place?

is the man better than the child he was? Is the harvest better than the planting? Is the pruned tree better than the overgrown tree? Is the house governed by the Son better than the house governed by the servant? Of course.

In other words, if one’s heart has been circumcised, then one is a true Jew, a true Israelite. Can a Gentile have a circumcised heart? Paul wrote this to the Colossians (a Gentile church): “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands” (Col. 2:11). Because their hearts were circumcised, they were true Israelites.

My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,’ says the Lord,

The authority of a faithful head of the household is not changed between the testaments; a man can still legitimately say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Was Abraham justified simply because he realized that real estate is from the Lord? The New Testament answers this question unambiguously. Abraham was not concerned principally with Canaan. That land was merely a shadow of what was really promised to him, and he knew it.

Simply stated, physical circumcision was given as a sign of Christ—who is the objective basis for spiritual or heart circumcision. The need for such a heart change is referred to in Jeremiah 4:4 where the prophet says, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.” God placed a spiritual value on physical circumcision only so far as it represented a circumcised heart (cf. Jer. 9:25–26). As a sign, circumcision was external. But as a sign, it was also given to point to spiritual realities.

This circumcision of the heart is described as the operation of the Spirit of God, which has to be understood as regeneration.

This is why it was so astonishing to Christ that a teacher of Israel did not know what He was talking about when He referred to the birth given by the Spirit (John 3). This was a truth taught plainly in the Old Testament Scriptures.

This was a seal, not of Abraham’s faith, but of the righteousness which he had by faith.

We must always reject the natural tendency to make the covenantal signs into a seal of our own personal righteousness.

the blessedness promised to Abraham came upon those circumcised in infancy, who later believed. Abraham was their father. And if they were circumcised in infancy but did not come to faith, he was not their father, and they were not true Jews.

It was the fact that the signification did not change which made it possible for the prophets to cast the periodic hypocrisy of the Israelites into their teeth. “You are circumcised. But why is your heart not circumcised?”

How then does circumcision relate to baptism? Just as circumcision was a sign and seal of the Christ who was to come, so baptism is a sign and seal of the Christ who came. Circumcision looked forward in history, and Christian baptism looks back in history, but they both testify to the same Christ, the same Lord of the Covenant. Neither circumcision nor baptism primarily testifies concerning the inward state of the individual who bears the sign and seal; they testify of Christ.

There is a baptism which accomplishes the circumcision of Christ. A baptism exists which accomplishes the putting off of the sins of the flesh.

both physical circumcision and water baptism are pictures of the same spiritual truth.

The reality that both pictures signify is this: the death of the old man in the cross of Christ.

Circumcision points to a once-for-all separation from sin through surgery. Baptism points to a once-for-all separation from sin through death, burial, and resurrection.

It is important to reiterate that water baptism is not a picture of the believer’s own personal death, burial and resurrection. It is a sign of the believer’s union with and in the death, burial, and resurrection of Another.

we see in this passage that there is a clear connection between the baptism of the Spirit and baptism with water. This means that water baptism and physical circumcision are a sign of the same Christ, who brings the same salvation to all who believe on Him. Water baptism corresponds with heart circumcision, and physical circumcision corresponds with spiritual baptism. The external signs are therefore theologically equivalent signs—they point to the same Christ.

by way of summary, we can say that water baptism is related to Christ in three basic ways. First, it is connected to the circumcision of the heart. Second, it refers to the union of the believer with his Lord. This union includes identification with His righteousness, and with His death, burial and resurrection. Third, it is clearly related to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Physical circumcision has the same relationship in all three respects, and was nonetheless administered to infants. There is therefore no compelling reason why Christians should not baptize the infants of believing parents as well.

1. Circumcision points to the circumcision of the heart 2. Circumcision was the sign that YHWH was God to them (Abrahamic covenant “I will be God to you and your children” and “this will be the sign”) 3. Circumcision by faith was related to union with God

water baptism is not a part of the gospel. It accompanies the gospel as a sign.

It is interesting to note that Peter describes baptism here as an antitype—the fulfillment of a type in the Old Testament. That Old Testament type was the flood at the time of Noah—God’s judgment upon the sin of the antediluvians, and His salvation of Noah and his household. Christian baptism, Peter says, is typified in the Old Testament, but it is not to be considered as something magical or automatic. After all, Noah was in the ark, along with his family, because of his faith. In the same way, we come to Christian baptism on the basis of our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

the promises of God to parents are good, and the duties are clear. The structure underneath these promises, commands and duties, according to the Scriptures, is a covenantal structure—the structure of the covenant of redemption.

Let us put this question another way. In the New Testament, were any infants legitimate members of any visible Christian covenant community? If we say no, then we are saying one of two things. Either the apostles were wrong to permit this practice which the New Testament records—they should have insisted that Christian Jews cease circumcising their boys—or the apostles changed the signification of circumcision in Christian homes so that it was merely a neutral cultural thing—“Jews had circumcision and Romans had togas.”

This is the main point of the past section: if circumcision is covenantal, and it was allowed in the intercovenantal period, but infants were no longer included in the covenant, then why would the apostles allow it to continue at all instead of hard-stopping it as soon as the Upper Room occurred? If it is merely cultural, then where is the record of the apostles changing its significance?

Circumcision of an infant meant that the infant was, as a result, a member of the local synagogue. So if there was Christian circumcision (and there was), and if there were Christian synagogues (and there were), and if the Christians who went to these synagogues were the same believers who circumcised their sons (and they were), then the necessary conclusion is that we know with certainty that some first century Christian churches had infant members.

Incidentally, we can see clearly in retrospect that baptism, being required of both Jew and Gentile, was intended by Christ to be the lasting sign of initiation into the church. Under the providence of God and the teaching and leadership of the apostles, circumcision was “fading away,” along with the rest of the cultus of the Old Covenant. The decisive point in this was the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, and the subsequent transformation of the church into a largely Gentile assembly.

We think baptism signifies things that common sense tells us are not ordinarily seen in the experience of infants. But circumcision and baptism point away, not in. They point to the same Christ, and, in Scripture, this testimony of Christ was placed upon infants by Christian parents.

In baptism, the old man is portrayed as buried. In circumcision, the old man is pictured as surgically removed. “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11).

(Gal. 3:26–29). In short, baptism says that the baptized one is a true son of Abraham, and an heir of the promise given to him. He is a citizen of the true Israel. This is also what circumcision says. Circumcision signified citizenship in Israel. “And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (Gen. 17:14).

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:1–6)