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

by Douglas Wilson

Obviously, this brings us next to the question of Gentile infants. Circumcision was prohibited for such—not because they were infants, but because they were Gentiles. So would the children of such believing Gentiles need to wait until they made a personal profession of faith, and then receive baptism? To do this would establish and maintain a practice that the New Testament very strongly prohibits—a sharp class division between Jews and Gentiles within the church. A situation would immediately develop where children of Jews would grow up as members of the church (because they had been circumcised and baptized), while the children of Gentiles were excluded (because they had not been baptized). This would maintain the Judaizing pressure on Gentile fathers to submit to circumcision—so that their sons could be circumcised too, in order to be included in the covenant. But this line of thought was not necessary because Gentiles were accepted on the strength of their baptism. So would baptism be offered to the children of Gentiles? Of course. Jew and Gentile alike were required and expected to live in harmony within the church, all bearing the same mark or badge—that of Christian. The middle wall of partition had come down. But because circumcision was prohibited to Gentiles as Gentiles, circumcision could not be their common mark of unity. If Jews did not take the mark of baptism, then that could not be the sign of unity either. Therefore believing Jews were baptized. Confirming...