Covenants - Glenn Davies

Children in the Old Testament were inheritors of all the blessings that belonged to Israel.  Circumcision set them apart as God’s children, separate from the world, bearing a sign of national identity, as the inheritors of the faith of Abraham. However, circumcision was also a sign or seal of the righteousness that comes by faith (Rom 4:11).  While the new covenant did away with the necessity of this outward sign for Gentiles, the reality of which it spoke is constitutive of the new covenant, where believers experience ‘a circumcision made without hands’ (Col 2:11). Moreover, a new sign of water baptism now marks out believers, a sign of identification with Christ in his death and resurrection (Matt 28:19-20; Rom 6:4; Col 2:12).

Under the new covenant, the inclusion of the children of believers in the family of God continues (Acts 2:39), even though circumcision is no longer required. The blessings of salvation equally belong to such children under both the old and new covenants.  Thus when Paul writes to the ‘saints’ at Ephesus, some of these saints are children (Eph 1:1; 6:1; cf Col 1:2; 3:20), and Paul’s admonition to them is for obedience ‘in the Lord’.  Such an exhortation is not made to pagans or unbelievers, but only to those who are in Christ and members of the covenant community.  To be sure, such children need education in the ways of the covenant and the gospel is always the context of this nurture, but the children do not need evangelising any more than Christian adults need evangelising.  They are already holy, otherwise they would be unclean (1 Cor 7:14; cf Mal 2:15).  It is the unclean who are outside the blessings of God’s covenant grace and who are in need of evangelising.

The children of unbelievers, on the other hand, are without salvation and without Christ.  Of course, it may please God to save some who die in infancy, but we have no warrant from Scripture to declare that such children are saved.  However, if a child of the covenant dies in infancy, then we have good warrant from Scripture to declare that the child is with Christ (cf. 2 Sam 12:23).  If this were not the case then there would be little point in baptising our children.  For in baptism we declare them to be forgiven, grafted into Christ and members of his church. They are not in a halfway house, until the age of discernment.  Rather, they are Christians, part of the covenant people of God, and their baptism declares this to be so.  Baptism is a symbol of belonging to Christ and being joined to him (1 Cor 12:13) and it conveys the same promises to each candidate, regardless of whether they be adult or infant.

Comments

[unkle e]

All no doubt true, Josh, but neglecting the other side of the question. There is (I think) more direct NT teaching on baptism being a part of conversion or commitment to following Jesus. I'm not sure there is much NT justification for saying baptism is the new circumcision.

PS Why was this important enough for you to post it? I am curious.

[Josh]

hey Uncle E

why is it something that i posted? well i encountered it again and have been thinking through covenantal Theology and once again i am falling in love with the fact that it actually says very little about me and what i can do for God but rather the covenant that he has made with me. I think it is amazing.

I think it helps put in a better frame of understanding baptism and why we should partake in it. It also re-establishes the fact that the God of yesterday, today and tomorrow will be the same and true to his word.

[unkle e]

Yeah, fair enough I guess. I can agree with most of those reasons. And just having a new child would make it important too.

But I'm a bit sus of any theology that purports to systematise God and his actions. I know it is difficult to work out how God deals with infants who die, but I just don't think we have God's revelation on it, and any theology must end up making things up so everything hangs together to our way of thinking.

I was brought up on covenant theology, but I now think believers baptism has more Biblical support, and like most reformed theology, covenant theology is built more on that its proponents perceive as "good and necessary consequence" (to use Walter Chantry's phrase from memory) than from God's revelation of himself. So I think I'd suggest keeping the clear truths from covenant theology without buying the whole package and the over-confident statements.

Different issue, same old unkleE I guess! : )