what good reason is there for me to assume that one must only be baptised/receive the sign of covenant membership upon profession, especially given that in the OT infants and adults were given the sign almost immediately after inception into the covenant.
Hopefully I am not derailing the thread here. There is one covenant of grace/redemption, peace &c. which was made in eternity but which is administered in time in various economies and is the " the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ" (Gal 3:17). One administration begins with Abraham and so the Abrahamic Covenant is one administration of the covenant of grace. With the coming of Christ the New Covenant replaced the Abrahamic or more precisely the Abrahamic was fulfilled in the New:
"Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." (Gal 3:16)
The New Covenant is a new administration of that one covenant of grace. Now circumcision was the sign and seal of the covenant of grace as administered through the Abrahamic Covenant whilst baptism is the sign and seal of the covenant of grace as administered through the New Covenant.
What then am I trying to say? Well simply that there is unity between the one administration and the other but there are also differences and one difference is that whilst in the Abrahamic Covenant infants (the typical seed of Abraham) were circumcised now in the New Covenant only professors (the true seed of Abraham) are baptised.
Genesis 17 is clear, God declares:
I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
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.
I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Now this should, I believe, be interpreted in two ways. Firstly in a literal and physical way and secondly in a spiritual way.
"That the covenant with Abraham," says Dr. Carson, "has a letter and a spirit, is not a theory formed to serve a purpose. It is consonant to every part of the Old Dispensation, and is the only sense that can harmonize it with the New Testament. The temple was the house of God, in the letter; believers are so in the spirit. To call any house the house of God, is as much below the sense which the same phrase has when it is applied to the church of Christ, as to call the nation of Israel the people of God, is below the sense which that phrase has when applied to the spiritual Israel. Besides, there are many things spoken about the house of God in the letter, in terms that can only fully suit the spirit. "I have surely," said Solomon, "built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide forever." The incongruity of supposing him, whom ?the heaven of heavens cannot contain,? to dwell in a house forever, as a settled habitation, is removed only by referring it to the spirit." "Christ?s body is the only temple of which this is fully true. God did not dwell in the temple built by Solomon forever." That temple ceased to exist twenty five centuries ago. "But in the spirit it is accomplished, in its utmost extent." In another place, the same distinguished writer observes : -"For the accomplishment of the grand purpose that all nations should be blessed in Abraham, he had three promises. First, a numerous posterity; which was fulfilled in the letter, to the nation of Israel. It was fulfilled in the spirit, by the divine constitution that makes all believers the children of Abraham." "The second was, that he would be a God to him, and his seed; which was fulfilled in the letter, by his protection of Israel in Egypt, his delivering them from bondage," and his subsequent dealings with that nation. "This promise is fulfilled in the spirit, by God?s being a God to all believers, and to them alone, in a higher sense than he ever was to Israel" as a nation. "The third promise was of the land of Canaan; fulfilled in the letter to Israel; and in the spirit fulfilled to the true Israel, in the heavenly inheritance," the possession of the Canaan above. "In accordance with this double sense of the covenant," "the typical ordinances, which exhibit the truths of the gospel in a figure, form one of the most conclusive evidences of Christianity, and present spiritual things to the mind, in so definite and striking a manner, that they add the greatest lustre to the doctrines of grace." by R.B.C. Howell, PHILOLOGY OF THE COVENANTS
So what does God mean by "and to thy seed after thee"? Simple; 1stly God was the God of the nation of Israel as their covenant God who were the typical people of God in the OT. 2ndly this promise is fulfilled in the seed of Abraham therefore we must ask who precisely are the seed of Abraham?
"Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." (Gal 3:16)
So Christ is the true seed of Abraham. But more:
"if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal 3:29)
The elect are the true seed of Abraham in Christ. What then does this mean for baptism. Well as circumcision was administered to the seed of Abraham in typical form so now in the blossom of redemptive history baptism should be also administered to the true seed of Abraham, the elect in Christ. How do we know who they are? Well their covenant head as their surety possesses all spiritual blessings which he mediates to them in time and two are repentance and faith. Therefore those who repent and believe ought to be baptised.
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:26-29)
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