It seems like for the first 1500 years up until the reformation baptism of infants was done to take away the sins of the many dieing babies, and thus regenerate them. They understood total depravity and original sin and did not want their babies to be lost if they died in infancy or at birth, at least this is how it seems. So when or who first came up with the idea of baptism as circumcision that is ascribed to now by modern reformed and Presbyterian folks?

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Erick Bohndorf PCA, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
Jeremiah 23:16,17, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you."

Well, the Scriptures did of course. I don't have the reference handy but there is at least one reference in early Church History to the baptism of children as a Covenantal thing.

I'll let some Church History heavyweights answer the details but the Swiss Reformation was the place where the Sacraments were Biblically recovered as far as I know.

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Rich
Okinawa, Japan

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The Methodists and Lutherans still sort of hold to the RCC idea of infant baptism and I know seems like the most biblically consistent doctrine but was wondering if it was Calvin or someone else who popularized it.

I don't know what you mean by Methodists and Lutherans holding to the RCC idea. I know Lutherans definitely do not hold to any Sacerdotal system of infused grace.

From what I understand, historically, we can't necessarily attribute all the main Reformed ideas to Calvin. Bullinger and Martyr were contemporaries of Calvin that helped shape each others' understanding of the Sacraments. Calvin is a giant but, unlike Lutheran theology that clearly has the stamp of Luther/Melancthon, Reformed theology developed from several men.

I think it's safe to say that Federal theology (aka Covenant Theology) was historically the most systematic presentation of God's Covenant dealings with man to that point.

I'll have to try and find the reference, but I am sure I read somewhere that it was Zwingli who first thought of the idea of covenant children and the sign and seal of the covenant being Baptism in place of circumcision.

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Satch Chikhlia, Reformed Baptist, Surrey, England

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The Lutheran's and UMC definitely do not believe in the reformed idea of covenant baptism. They don't go so far as to say that the sacraments actually infuse grace but my wife and I have witnessed several UMC infant baptisms and they clearly stated that the child is now a sealed believer with their sins washed away (they did however later have to be confirmed, the Lutherans had a similar idea that baptism more or less saves but they have to later be confirmed). This comes from actually talking to a Lutheran pastor.

I think the question is built on a false, if widely held, premise. The covenant theology of the 16th century was formed from threads that existed in the patristic and medieval periods. The Fathers taught various aspects of covenant theology. They used the covenant of grace to unify the history of redemption in just the way that the Reformed did in the 16th century as they defended infant baptism on the basis of the one covenant of grace made with Abraham and changed only in administration -- not in substance. Bullinger wrote his treatise in the early 1530s on this very basis but much of what he said was anticipated by Irenaeus and others in the patristic period.

rsc

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R. Scott Clark, D.Phil
Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology

"For Christ, His Gospel, and His Church"
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Kevin Rogers
Sovereign Community Church, PCA
Moncton NB

Hello Erick,

When you put it as you have, “When did the covenant idea of baptism first arise?”, I would go back before church history to the apostles and the Lord Jesus. I realize what I will say has been part of the standard argumentation – both pro and con – in the discussions of baptism, but the simplicity of it is striking.

When I was converted – a Jew (albeit non-observant) – it was most natural to me to equate the sign of the New Covenant with the sign of the Old, that is, the Abrahamic. Paul says it succinctly, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29). It was said by the LORD concerning Abraham and his seed, “This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee: Every man child among you shall be circumcised” (Gen 17:10).

Zacharias, John the Baptizer’s father, just prior to Christ’s birth, prophesied that God was about “To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham....” (Luke 1:72, 73). The oath was that in him all nations of the earth be blessed (Gen 12:3), and that He would be a God unto them (Gen 17:7), and they would be His people.

Paul tells us concerning all (Jew and Gentile) who came to Messiah upon His drawing them, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith [in Him], the same are the children of Abraham....[and] they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham (Gal 3:7, 9). What Abraham was blessed with was the friendship of God (2 Chr 20:7; Isa 41:8; James 2:23).

If we are indeed then the seed of Abraham, heirs both of the blessing and the stipulations of the covenant made with him, can we neglect putting the sign and seal of the covenant (Rom 4:11) on our children as well as on ourselves, for the command has never been abrogated.

Here is one place where baptism is equated with circumcision, and those who perform it are obeying the command given Abraham:

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:10-12)

Finally it had been thoroughly fulfilled, the spiritual reality of outward circumcision, which is the circumcision even Jeremiah spoke of, circumcision of the heart (9:25, 26). Paul talks again of it in Romans 2:28, 29, and the imagery of it is oft repeated in his epistles, putting off the old man, putting on the new (Eph 4:22-24), putting on Christ (Gal 3:27; Rom 13:12-14), and then Romans 6 which goes into depth, showing that in union with Christ this New Testament “circumcision of the heart” is effected by our being put to death in the flesh – “buried with [Christ] by baptism into death” (6:4a) – and quickened into “new creatures” by the Holy Spirit – “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (6:4b; cf. 8:10, 11). Please note, this pertains to believers only, not infants, as Paul is talking of all these things being reckoned true by faith. Peter explicitly says God purifies our hearts “by faith” (Acts 15:9). We baptize our children because, as Abraham’s seed, we believe, and obey the covenant commands.

It will not do to say that the Old Covenant was discontinued and the spiritual truths circumcision signified have no continuance in the New Covenant, as this betrays a confusion of the covenants. Indeed the Mosaic Covenant was superceded by the New, but the Mosaic is not to be confused with the Abrahamic. Paul sharply distinguishes between the two in Galatians 3, asserting that the continuing validity of God’s covenant with Abraham was not annulled by the introduction of Mosaic Law, but remained intact and operative, and that even after the Mosaic Covenant was fulfilled and superceded (verse 17).

In sum: we who believe into Christ, thus being the heirs of Abraham, take baptism as the New Covenant and spiritual sign and seal, signifying that circumcision of the heart effected by our union with Christ in His death and resurrection.

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Steve Rafalsky
Elder, International Evangelical Church (Reformed)
Limassol, Cyprus

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