Standing on the Promises

BI: As heirs of the covenant promises, children born to believing parent/s are entitled to receive the sign and seal of the New covenant, which is baptism.

Intro

"There are historically three sources of identity: designed, discovered, or derived. Expressive individualism assumes it is designed, modernism assumed it is discovered (i.e., Myers-Briggs and Enneagram), while biblically identity is derived through an ongoing dependent relationship with Jesus." (John Seel, The Challenge of Cultural Engagement)

In his book How (not) to be Secular James K. A. Smith makes Charles Taylor the social philosopher of culture accessible to a wider audience. One of Taylor’s insights in defining our secular culture was what he called expressive individualism. Smith defines this as:

An understanding “that each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity,” and that we are called to live that out (“express” it) rather than conform to models imposed by others (especially institutions).1 (Smith, 141)

That is our identity is designed, or created. In a 2013 article by Lorenz Sell entitled Losing my Identity, Sell writes,

struggling to find my identity I realized that I create my own identity. This is the most valuable lesson that I have learned. When I let go of the need to define myself, I can choose any definition I want. By accepting that I am not limited by any notion of identity, I liberate myself to just be me. Right here, right now, I am choosing my identity by how I am choosing to spend my time. In this very moment I am creating myself and this is my identity.2

These sentiments have percolated all the way down through our society so that it has become seen as normal that even a child should be able to write his own identity, choosing without parental consent his gender and even opting for treatments and even surgeries all on his own. (I’ll never forget a comment by Bill Maher to the effect: thank God I wasn’t allowed this choice, else I may have opted to cut my hand and leg off to don the peg and hook of a pirate).

The Roman Catholics blame the Reformation for this modern development, but this accusation has been ably answered by Reformed theologians. The flowering of the Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment coexisted alongside the developments in the church, which we call the Reformation. However, the church has not been hermetically sealed off from the encroaching enlightenment’s developments. Some Protestant traditions were more so than others. The Anabaptist tradition being one, along with the novel development of dispensationalism in the late 19th century. These two have had an outsized influence on the development of Protestantism in the American context, including evangelicals. I would contend this is because they did not deal adequately with the biblical concept of covenant, which led to the putting too much emphasis on the discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New.

There are multiple fronts to attack these dangerous bifurcations that attempt to cleave the old from the new, but where the battle becomes much more emotional fraught is on the issue of paedobaptism, the baptism of infants. But I want to attack it obliquely. For my contention is that unless we recover the concept of covenant, a whole host of other biblical ideas are open to cultural pressures of conformity. Issues such as sexuality and gender roles, children and family, church and state, and even the Gospel itself. The covenant is like the frame of a car. You can have an engine, and you can have seats, and even a body, but if you have no frame, that car won’t hold together. Let’s recover a frame, and then I will show you how and where baptism fits and why this is all good news for children.

Acts 2:37–39 (ESV) — 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

From Old Covenant Promise to its Fulfillment in the New

Peter’s sermon is long and complex, and we are merely zooming in on its application. The sermon began as an apology (not in the sense of I’m sorry but in the sense of a defense) against the charge of drunkenness. The gathered church, freshly filled with the Spirit, poured out into the crowded streets of Jerusalem and spoke in tongues (the language of the diaspora). Since the crowds could not explain how uneducated men could declare the mighty works of God to them in their native languages, they concluded they must be drunk. Although in all my brief life I have never met a person who, when drunk, became smarter, that’s beside the point. Peter declares that what in fact was happening had already been predicted by the prophets. He then gives them an exposition of several key OT texts to prove that Jesus was the Christ. Then, to drive the point home, he lays the blame of Christ’s death firmly at their feet.

At this they are cut to the heart (which, by the way, is symbolic for circumcision of the heart), so they ask what they must do to be saved. Now don’t make the Arminian mistake of thinking that Peter’s response puts the onus on the crowd and their response to the gospel. Even here, it is clear that the same spirit that compelled the disciples to preach is the one who circumcises hearts, opening them up to receive the word and respond by faith. So Peter says, “Repent and be baptized.” I will not deal much with repentance, and the baptism I will take up after first addressing the reason Peter gives for such a response. Notice v. 39.

Acts 2:39 (ESV) — 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

Wait, what promise? What is Peter referring to? Immediately he was referring to the forgiveness of sins and the reception of the Holy Spirit. And it is also a reference back to the end of his quotation of Joel 2 — that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But the genesis of that promise begins all the way back in the garden, when in cursing the serpent, God promises that the seed (singular) of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. That first Gospel promise is taken up and expanded by every other promise God makes.

These are covenant promises, but what is a covenant? A covenant “formally binds parties together in a relationship.”3 These have stipulations, which offer blessings and curses, and are often administered with an oath (ceremony). Adam, having broken the stipulations of the covenant of creation, God makes a new covenant with Noah, who also fails to keep the stipulations. As the story drives forward, God continues again to enter into a covenant, this time with Abraham. The one covenant he enters into with him unfolds progressively in three important chapters in Genesis 12, 15, and 17. Each time God reaffirms the covenant he made in Ch. 12, in two unique ceremonies that highlight different aspects of the covenant. For our purpose, we will focus on ch. 17, for its sign-oath in circumcision.

The covenant promises he gives to Abram involve a symbolic name-change, better suited to fit who God will make him to be. For from him will come kings and nations, so that he will be the father of multitudes. As all covenant relationships (even somewhat between equal parties, like David and Jonathan) the stipulations, along with the blessings and curses, continue to their children, they are hereditary. The important thing to note from Ch. 17 is found in v. 7.

Genesis 17:7 (ESV) — 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

In essence, the covenant promise aside from the promise of fruitfulness is that God would be his God, and Abraham would be God’s. God was binding himself to Abraham in an unbreakable bond. This bond would extend to his children too. The promise of continued relational-blessing was granted not just to Abraham but also to his children after him. This covenant is reaffirmed with Isaac and Jacob (Israel) in the oft-repeated phrase the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:6).

The covenant is ratified in an oath ceremony of circumcision. The foreskin of Abraham and his sons at eight days old (new creation) was cut off. This symbolically represents two vital aspects of being in a right relationship with God. First, it involves a stripping away of the old man. Second, this is only done through the shedding of blood.

So summarizing, God enters into a relationship with Abraham promising to bless him and make him fruitful, and requiring that he walk before and be blameless (that is live by faith) and the covenant is ratified with the oath of circumcision, a physical cutting away of the flesh, symbolic for the death necessary to secure the covenant blessings, that God himself would take on himself (15:17-18). Those promised blessings continue to all those who add their own faith (which simply means have their heart circumcised) to the hereditary oath of circumcision.

But before we connect the covenant promise and its oath-sign of circumcision to Peter’s sermon and its new covenant fulfillment in baptism, we need to look closer at Paul’s treatment of Genesis 17:7 and the big deal he makes out of the fact that “offspring” in v. 7 is singular. He says:

Galatians 3:15–29 (ESV) — 15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. 19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. 21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

The promise that is for you and your children is that you are heirs with Christ of the promise that Jesus, the offspring, inherited by his death on the cross (which circumcision pictured). There he took on himself the curse for the failure of Abraham’s offspring to walk before Him and be blameless. Jesus won through his victory on the cross the blessedness of the promise given to Abraham and reiterated through Moses and David, which we call the new covenant fulfillment. As Paul makes clear, all those, Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, all become recipients of the fulfilled promise by having the same faith that Abraham had.

The new covenant promises Christ fulfills are not radically divorced from the Old covenant promises, as Dispensationalism would have us believe. But there is a continuity as each covenant relationship builds atop the other, culminating in the new. Thus, we would expect, as Peter makes clear, the promise is extended also to our children, just as it was in the Old Covenant. For the promise is that in Christ they have forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The fulfillment of the old in the new does not erase the continuity, instead, it establishes it. But If the promise remains the same, then what has changed?

From Circumcision to Baptism

The Westminster Confession in Ch. 7.5 clarifies that what has changed is the way the covenant is administered. The administration of the covenant promises ratified in circumcision was suited to the time before Christ, as they point forward to the coming of Christ. The author of Hebrews has stern warnings for all those who would attempt to go back to the old administration, for since Christ is the substance for which those old covenant institutions prefigured, once he came, the form of the new covenant administration must be different.

So in fulfilling the stipulations of the covenant, making the way to blessedness, faith, Jesus changes the Old Covenant oath-ceremony of circumcision to baptism. Paul makes this explicit in Colossians.

Colossians 2:11–12 (ESV) — 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Paul says that in Christ you have undergone the only circumcision that mattered, that of the heart, it was done through the circumcision of Christ. By which he means the death of Christ on the cross, which is a cutting off of the flesh in a bloody sacrificial death, which circumcision always prefigured. The oath-ceremony of this action is baptism, in which you, in vital union with Christ, died with Him and were raised up with him. As the Belgic confession teaches.

We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law, has made an end, by the shedding of His blood, of all other sheddings of blood which men could or would make as a propitiation or satisfaction for sin; and that He, having abolished circumcision, which was done with blood, has instituted the sacrament of baptism instead thereof; by which we are received into the Church of God, and separated from all other people and strange religions, that we may wholly belong to Him whose mark and ensign we bear; and which serves as a testimony to us that He will forever be our gracious God and Father. Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).

So in the administration of the covenant of grace after Christ has come involves a change in sacramental sign from circumcision to baptism. But both point to the same covenant promises, which as Peter makes explicit belong to you, and your children.

Having made the connection between circumcision and baptism, we need now to back up and ask, what did circumcision do?

The promise extends to children of the covenant who are marked with the sign by circumcision. But what does that sign do? Does it save them? Does it guarantee their salvation, their perseverance? No, it does not do any of those things. The sign points to their status as covenant members, and like most memberships, that gives you access to certain privileges. If I get a Sam’s Club membership, I am entitled to shop there, and to sundry other benefits that those who don’t have a membership do not have access to. But I don’t have to use those benefits. I have access to them, but I must take advantage of that access.

Circumcision is not the covenant itself (i.e. the relationship) but a sign and seal of that covenant relationship. When you have access to the benefits of the relationship and you use them, we say you are a covenant-keeper. Which internally means you are also circumcised in your heart. Outward circumcision is matched with inward, so that what is true objectively (you are a member of the covenant) is also true subjectively (from the heart).

Now, lest we subtle sneak in a works principle as dispensationals often do, Israel is not saved by “doing the law” anymore than you are. The Mosaic covenant is also an administration of the covenant of grace. There is some misunderstanding surrounding what Leviticus 18:5 means.

Leviticus 18:5 (ESV) — 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.

Does it mean that those who keep the law shall then be given life? Or that those who do the commandments are living? That real life, the only life worth living, is found in keeping the commandments of God. I am inclined to say it is the latter. For as Paul said, the Law was never designed to lead to life, the law sets down what real life should look like. Grace empowers obedience. Grace restores nature so that we live as we were designed to, which looks like keeping the law.

So the old covenant saints were not circumcised and then told, ok now keep the law and you can have the blessings of the covenant. No, not at all. They were circumcised and told to live by faith, to believe the promises. Circumcision joined with faith means that the sign shows the thing signified. It shows not only that you are a part of the people of God but also that your sins have been forgiven, that the old man has been cut off through a bloody sacrifice, and you are at peace with God. But when circumcision is not joined with faith, it then becomes an emblem of judgment, for you who have access to the highest privileges on earth have turned and become a covenant-breaker. For not all Israel are Israel (Rom. 9:6) but only those whose heart is circumcised too. Remember, faith is a gift too. So it’s all of grace, all the way down. Both in the making of the relationship, its maintenance, and its attendant blessings are all conditioned on the unbreakable oath that God made with Abraham.

What about Baptism?

Now if baptism replaces circumcision, and Children are heirs of the covenant promises, then it stands to reason they should be baptized. But what does baptism do? Does baptism save you?

No, baptism does not save you. But it works exactly as circumcision did in the old covenant. Except there is no longer any need for a bloody sacrifice, for Christ has already died and was raised to new life. In that way, baptism symbolizes not a sacrifice but a trial by ordeal. Water is symbolic of chaos. Paul says that all of Israel passed through the sea and was baptized into Moses. The early Christian liturgies used the motif of crossing the red sea in their baptismal liturgies. Peter draws from the flood, to illustrate that just as God brought Noah and his family safely through in the ark, so to does baptism save you. In each of those examples, the Lord provides a safe passage through the stormy waters of chaos, bringing us to our desired haven.

But just as circumcision, faith is the necessary condition to make what is objectively true of you (membership in the covenant community, the church), subjectively true (a new heart). What of infants that are baptized that don’t make use of their privileges? They fall from grace, not in the sense that they lose their salvation–for all those Christ has died for will be saved, and as promised, he will lose none of them–but in the sense that they spurn the ordinary means of grace which benefits serve to build up faith.

Children are not baptized because we believe that the very act of sprinkling water on them saves them. Children are baptized because they are entitled to the covenant promises, and the sign and seal that they are entitled to such benefits is baptism. Baptism is not something we do, it’s something God does to us. God gave circumcision as a visible word to remind the people of God that God was their God; that they belonged to Him. God also gave baptism, marking his covenant people with His own triune name and declaring over them, mine!

Which is much different from a Baptist’s conception of baptism. This declaration comes from a 2000 Faith and Message from the SBC:

“Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”4

For Baptists, baptism is something that I do. It is an act of my obedience, symbolizing my faith. It is my testimony of my faith. How, given that conception, could an infant ever do those things? If they can’t, what status do they have? Are they little pagans we should evangelize? Or are they covenant children we should nurture in the faith?

Notice Peter doesn’t say repent and be baptized as a testimony that you have believed in the gospel. He says, repent and be baptized because the promises are for you and your children. Faith then takes hold of those promises and runs until it finishes the race. Through baptism, you are brought into the church and given access to all the blessings of the covenant promise, but you must avail yourself of those benefits by faith.

The Griffith

So, in a moment, the Griffith family is going to come forward and have their children baptized. Those children, by virtue of their being born into a covenant household, are members of the covenant and have access to all the covenant blessings. Baptism doesn’t make that reality true. Baptism only recognizes that it is true. In baptism, Christ, through His minister, applies the sign and seal of what is already true. And this day will serve as a reminder for the Griffith children that they are members of the covenant community, the church. Which is the body of Christ, and the only place of salvation. So that as Bill and Sarah nurture their covenant children in the faith, God will use the ordinary means of grace to conform their hearts to what is objectively true of these children already through His gift of faith. So that in old age, these little ones will look back and say I never knew a day when Christ wasn’t my Lord. [Invite the Griffith Family to come forward].

Lord’s Supper Meditation

You who have been baptized into Christ have access by His Spirit to communion and fellowship with Christ at His table. As the sacrament of baptism marks your place in the covenant community, so the Lord’s Supper celebrates your ongoing participation in that same covenant community. But just as in baptism, the reception of the grace conferred by this sacrament requires faith. It’s not enough to just have access to the promises of God, but you must make use of them. That is, you must trust that the promises are true for you. Reflecting on your own baptism, you are reminded that God marked you as His own–you belong to Him. The supper reminds you of the cost it took for the Son to purchase your salvation. You see the great love of Christ displayed in these emblems of grace, signifying in bread His torn body, and in wine His shed blood. That God the Son should die for us, undeserving sinners, takes us to the core of the gospel promises. That despite our unfaithfulness, despite all the covenant breaking each one of us, and our fathers, has done, he remains faithful. The same promise that upheld Abraham, that sustained the patriarchs, and encouraged Israel—the promises that all of God’s people have clung to through thick and thin—all have found there yes and amen in Christ. He was the goal of the promises and the place of their fulfillment. And you are in Him. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed, let us celebrate the feast–your sins are forgiven, and you have the promised Holy Spirit. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. Amen.

Charge

As heirs of the covenant promises, children born to believing parent/s are entitled to receive the sign and seal of the New covenant, which is baptism. The Westminster Larger catechism #167 says:

The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

So dear Saints, improve your baptism. Remember that you are not your own. God has marked you as His own, so live and so walk as that is true.

1 Smith, James K. A. How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014. Pg. 141 ↩

2 Sell, Lorenz. “Losing My Identity.” Medium (blog), August 21, 2013. https://medium.com/@lorenzsell/losing-my-identity-775790b4d6ba. ↩

3 Collins, C. John. Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub., 2006. Pg. 113. ↩

4 https://bfm.sbc.net/. “Baptist Faith & Message 2000 - The Baptist Faith and Message.” Accessed August 18, 2023. https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/. ↩