Why Baptise Infants?
By Richard Sherratt
“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.”
– Genesis 17:7
There will be times I am sure that we shall be asked by someone why as Christians we should or do baptise infants. How should we respond? It is my conviction that we ought to found our position squarely upon the eternal covenant of God.
The covenant of God
It is a glorious truth indeed that our God is a covenant God. In Genesis 17:7 God declares of himself “I will establish my covenant”. This gracious covenant that God establishes is founded in eternity and is realised within history and is wholly unconditional. It “was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.” This covenant, the covenant of God, is a relation of the most intimate communion of friendship between the triune God and his chosen people in Christ Jesus. It is this covenant, this relation of friendship, that God establishes and he does so with believers and their children. Hence God says in Genesis 17:7 that “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee”.
This gracious covenant is realised in history within the line of continued generations. This is found in Genesis 17:7 in the phrase “I will establish my covenant between me and…thy seed after thee in their generations”. So as we look back into the Old Testament we find the line of God’s covenant running from Adam to Christ in an unbroken line through Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Israel, Judah and David. Just read Genesis chapters 5, 10 and 11, Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 to obtain a greater appreciation of this truth.
From the Old Testament we find that God has established his covenant with believers and their seed or, as Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Hoeksema puts it, ‘in the line of continued generations’ and that infants are included in the covenant of God. This is continued in the New Testament hence Peter declares in Acts 2:38, 39 “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” I would then urge all to see “the truth of the historical-organic development of God’s covenant on earth in the line of generations.” Indeed the Puritans were fond of pointing out that “God casts the line of election in the loins of godly parents.”
The covenant sign
Whilst God has established his covenant he has also instituted a sign and seal of this covenant so that those with whom the covenant is established are marked out as being in a covenant relation with God. Not only that these signs of the covenant have two parts. The first is an “outward and sensible sign” and the second is “an inward and spiritual grace” signified thereby. Under the old dispensation the sign and seal of the covenant was circumcision so when God established his covenant with Abraham and his seed God said that “…Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Genesis 17: 10, 11). The sign of circumcision, we are taught in Romans 4:11, was a “seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised” i.e. that God justifies the believers by faith. If we look throughout the Scriptures we find that circumcision signified much more that just this. It symbolised regeneration and confession of sin (Leviticus 26:40, 41), sanctification or the putting off of the old man (Jeremiah 4:4). In Deuteronomy 30:6 it signified the working of God in the heart filling it with the love of God. Finally circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant to be the God of believers and their seed as is taught in Genesis 17:7-14 saying that it “shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you”. The covenant sign of circumcision signified a spiritual grace.
However Christ has taken away all bloody ordinances and the rite of circumcision has been fulfilled in baptism and so now under the new dispensation baptism has replaced circumcision as the covenantal sign and seal. Titus 3:5 and 1 Peter 3:21 teach that baptism signifies regeneration and cleansing. Romans 6:4 teach that it symbolises sanctification and Galatians 3:27-29 teaches us that baptism signifies our being in the covenant of God as circumcision once did. Further Colossians 2:11-13 offers clear proof that circumcision and baptism are essentially the same in meaning.
This teaching is taught in both the Belgic Confession of 1561 and the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563. The Belgic Confession states that
We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law, has by His shed blood put an end to every other shedding of blood that one could or would make as an expiation or satisfaction for sins. He has abolished circumcision, which involved blood, and has instituted in its place the sacrament of baptism. By baptism we are received into the Church of God and set apart from all other peoples and false religions, to be entirely committed to Him whose mark and emblem we bear. This serves as a testimony to us that He will be our God and gracious Father for ever…[and] Because baptism has the same meaning for our children as circumcision had for the people of Israel, Paul calls baptism the circumcision of Christ.
The Heidelberg Catechism asks “Should infants, too, be baptized?” replying thus:
Yes. Infants as well as adults belong to God's covenant and congregation…Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be grafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the old covenant by circumcision, in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant.
Here we find it taught explicitly that “baptism has the same meaning for our children as circumcision had for the people of Israel” and so we can say safely conclude that the sign and seal of the covenant has changed from circumcision to baptism.
A covenant people and a covenant sign
That God has established a covenant has been shown above as has his institution of a sign of that covenant. God has also commanded that those with whom he has established his covenant are marked with the covenant sign. This can be seen in Genesis 17:7-11 “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee… Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.” Because God establishes his covenant with believers and their seed so believers and their seed ought be marked out by the covenant sign. Therefore the argument that we maintain is that infants ought to be baptised because they are included in the covenant of God and baptism being the sign of the covenant it should be administered to infants. Therein we join with the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) in asking that if infants are included in God’s covenant “Why, then, should the sign of God’s covenant not be given to them?”
A final word
I began by asking how we should respond to someone asking why we should baptise infants. My answer is that we show them that because infants are included in the covenant and because baptism is the sign of the covenant it should therefore be administered to infants. We baptise infants because it is the will of God that infants be baptised!
My appologies for any typos
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