The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Oikos Baptism

Yes, the myriad references to circumcision in the O.T. which was the old covenant "shadow" of the new covenant baptism just as the ceremonial sacrifices were shadows of the sacrifice offered by Christ.

As has been stated several times before in this thread, there is a definite and sure continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant because there is but ONE covenant of grace. The discontinuity is to be found in the administrations of that one covenant beginning with Adam, then Noah, Abraham, Jacob, David, etc. The "sign" was changed to reflect the better/new administration when Messiah came to accomplish all that was before prophesied and shown in shadows and types.

Credo-baptists will as a matter of course reject this explanation and bifurcate the one covenant of grace into two "covenants". The more knowledgeable credo-baptists are quick to reject this bifurcation and speak rather of "discontinuity" between the administrations of the one covenant of grace. This is much more helpful and I believe with them, biblical. That we agree to disagree on the degree of continuity/discontinuity is where things should be and thus it is not a matter of breaking union as it usually is between paedos and credos; mostly on the credo side historically.

So, if one accepts that baptism has replaced circumcision as the covenant sign and seal, then one does not need a specific NT verse that shows infants were baptized because "believers and their children" being the covenant promise of God was expected and practiced. Further, with such a incredibly important matter as God's covenant any change in that covenant, for example, the dispensing of including children would surely be present in the teaching of Christ and/or the inspired NT writers. I see no NT command to stop the practice of giving covenant children the sign of the covenant. Thus when it says that "households" were baptized, surely if there were children in those families, they were included as they had been for thousands of years before.

In His grace,