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

by Douglas Wilson

Now the interesting thing here is that Paul turns and warns the Gentiles who had been grafted in against the very same sin committed by their fruitless predecessors. But could not these Gentiles answer Paul in this fashion? “Paul, you misunderstand the nature of the New Covenant. In the New Covenant, all branches always bear fruit. The prophet Jeremiah promised that we would all know the Lord from the least of us to the greatest. Your warning is unnecessary.”

Why does Paul argue that nothing can remove the elect from Christ, and then turn around and deliver a sober warning about the dangers of being removed from the olive tree? The answer is inescapable. There is a difference between being elect, and being a covenant member.

These truths demonstrate that the temporal placement of this sign of circumcision with regard to the time of justification was not significant in Paul’s thinking.

The issue was not so much whether someone was circumcised on such and such a date, but whether he is circumcised now.

First, in Acts 2, the word baptism refers to a pouring. We know that the experience at Pentecost was a baptism of the Holy Spirit because it is described as such, both before and after the event.

Acts 1:5, 2:16-17, 11:15-16

Just as the Lord’s Supper grew out of the Passover, but is certainly distinct from it, so Christian baptism grew out of the Old Testament washings and purifications. These washings are called baptisms in the New Testament (Heb. 9:9–10).

consider Numbers 19. The chapter contains sprinkling with blood (v. 4), sprinkling with the water of purification (vv. 13, 20), which was most likely sprinkling with ashes from the heifer (vv. 17–19). But this chapter in Numbers also teaches that the person who was unclean and was sprinkled in this way must complete his cleansing on the seventh day by bathing in water (v. 19). In other words, he is first sprinkled, and then washes much more thoroughly—he is immersed, or water is poured on him.

care must be taken to avoid imposing modern burial habits on an ancient text. The way we baptize by immersion (lowering into the water) and the way we bury (lowering into the ground) do appear similar. This similarity, however, disappears when we remember that Jesus was buried through being enclosed in a small room with a door.

The key thought is union with Christ, and identification with Him. This can be done equally well through pouring, immersion, or sprinkling. Provided that baptism with water is administered in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and administered within the boundaries of the Christian faith, there is ample scriptural grounds for accepting all these modes as valid biblical forms of baptism.

Dr. Carson’s claim that “it always signifies to dip” is not true in classical Greek (Aristotle, Hist. Anim. v, 15). It is not true in Judaic Greek (LXX: Dan. 4:33). It is not true in New Testament Greek (Matt. 26:23; Heb. 9:10). In short, the claim of exclusivity for immersion is demonstrably not true.

Our concern as Christians should be how the Bible uses bapto and baptizo. We see pouring in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:15–16, and Acts 2:17. We see partial immersion in Matthew 26:23 and John 13:26. We see complete identification in 1 Corinthians 10:1–4. We see sprinkling when we compare Hebrews 9:9–10 with Numbers 19:4, 13, 17–20, and then look at Hebrews 9:13–14. The word translated “washings” is the noun baptismos. The Old Testament washings and sprinklings are described by the author of Hebrews as baptisms: “concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation . . . . For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh” (Heb. 9:10, 13). And lastly, we see the possibility of immersion in one of the basic lexical meanings of the word, as well as a possible hint in the burial with Christ taught in Romans 6.

But is it reasonable to suppose that those who so loudly objected to the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles would somehow not object at all to the exclusion of their own circumcised children?

Faithful parents are promised that their children will follow the Lord (Deut. 7:9). Moreover, the blessings of this covenantal succession were prophesied as coming into a glorious fulfillment under the New Covenant (Ezek. 37:24–26; Isa. 59:21; 65:23; Jer. 32:38–40). The responsibility for the reverence and faithfulness of children is therefore quite properly delegated to parents (Eph. 6:4; 1 Tim. 3:4; Titus 1:6). Under the New Covenant, our children’s children are truly included (Ps. 103; Luke 1:48–50).