non dignus
Puritan Board Sophomore
B.B. Warfield from "The Polemics of Infant Baptism"-
http://www.mbrem.com/baptism/babybap.htm#top
"So fully did the first Christians -- the apostles -- realize the continuity of the Church, that they were more inclined to retain parts of the outward garments of the Church than to discard too much. Hence circumcision itself was retained; and for a considerable period all initiates into the Church were circumcised Jews and received baptism additionally.
We do not doubt that children born into the Church during this age were both circumcised and baptized. The change from baptism superinduced upon circumcision to baptism substituted for circumcision was slow, and never came until it was forced by the actual pressure of circumstances. The instrument for making this change and so -- who can doubt it? -- for giving the rite of baptism its right place as the substitute for circumcision, was the Apostle Paul. We see the change formally constituted at the so-called Council of Jerusalem, in Acts xv. Paul had preached the gospel to Gentiles and had received them into the Church by baptism alone, thus recognizing it alone as the initiatory rite, in the place of circumcision, instead of treating as heretofore the two together as the initiatory rites into the Christian Church.
But certain teachers from Jerusalem, coming down to Antioch, taught the brethren
"except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses ye cannot be saved."
Paul took the matter before the Church of Jerusalem from which these new teachers professed to emanate; and its formal decision was that to those who believed and were baptized circumcision was not necessary.
How fully Paul believed that baptism and circumcision were but two symbols of the same change of heart, and that one was instead of the other, may be gathered from Col. ii.11, when, speaking to a Christian audience of the Church, he declares that
"in Christ ye were also circumcised "-- but how? -- "with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh,"
-- that is, in the circumcision of Christ. But what was this Christ-ordained circumcision? The Apostle continues:
"Having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead."
Hence in baptism they were buried with Christ, and this burial with Christ was the circumcision which Christ ordained, in the partaking of which they became the true circumcision. This falls little, if any, short of a direct assertion that the Christian Church is Israel, and has Israel's circumcision, though now in the form of baptism.
Does the view of Paul, now, contradict the New Testament idea of the Church, or only the Baptist idea of the Church?
No doubt a large number of the members of the primitive Church did insist, as Dr. Strong truly says, that those who were baptized should also be circumcised: and no doubt, this proves that in their view baptism did not take the place of circumcision. But this was an erroneous view: is represented in the New Testament as erroneous; and it is this exact view against which Paul protested to the Church of Jerusalem and which the Church of Jerusalem condemned in Acts xv. Thus the Baptist denial of the substitution of baptism for circumcision leads them into the error of this fanatical, pharisaical church-party!
Let us take our places in opposition, along with Paul and all the apostles."
http://www.mbrem.com/baptism/babybap.htm#top
"So fully did the first Christians -- the apostles -- realize the continuity of the Church, that they were more inclined to retain parts of the outward garments of the Church than to discard too much. Hence circumcision itself was retained; and for a considerable period all initiates into the Church were circumcised Jews and received baptism additionally.
We do not doubt that children born into the Church during this age were both circumcised and baptized. The change from baptism superinduced upon circumcision to baptism substituted for circumcision was slow, and never came until it was forced by the actual pressure of circumstances. The instrument for making this change and so -- who can doubt it? -- for giving the rite of baptism its right place as the substitute for circumcision, was the Apostle Paul. We see the change formally constituted at the so-called Council of Jerusalem, in Acts xv. Paul had preached the gospel to Gentiles and had received them into the Church by baptism alone, thus recognizing it alone as the initiatory rite, in the place of circumcision, instead of treating as heretofore the two together as the initiatory rites into the Christian Church.
But certain teachers from Jerusalem, coming down to Antioch, taught the brethren
"except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses ye cannot be saved."
Paul took the matter before the Church of Jerusalem from which these new teachers professed to emanate; and its formal decision was that to those who believed and were baptized circumcision was not necessary.
How fully Paul believed that baptism and circumcision were but two symbols of the same change of heart, and that one was instead of the other, may be gathered from Col. ii.11, when, speaking to a Christian audience of the Church, he declares that
"in Christ ye were also circumcised "-- but how? -- "with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh,"
-- that is, in the circumcision of Christ. But what was this Christ-ordained circumcision? The Apostle continues:
"Having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead."
Hence in baptism they were buried with Christ, and this burial with Christ was the circumcision which Christ ordained, in the partaking of which they became the true circumcision. This falls little, if any, short of a direct assertion that the Christian Church is Israel, and has Israel's circumcision, though now in the form of baptism.
Does the view of Paul, now, contradict the New Testament idea of the Church, or only the Baptist idea of the Church?
No doubt a large number of the members of the primitive Church did insist, as Dr. Strong truly says, that those who were baptized should also be circumcised: and no doubt, this proves that in their view baptism did not take the place of circumcision. But this was an erroneous view: is represented in the New Testament as erroneous; and it is this exact view against which Paul protested to the Church of Jerusalem and which the Church of Jerusalem condemned in Acts xv. Thus the Baptist denial of the substitution of baptism for circumcision leads them into the error of this fanatical, pharisaical church-party!
Let us take our places in opposition, along with Paul and all the apostles."