Circumcision and Baptism
John Bapstead: The question of infant baptism is the main point of dissension between you and me. As I have already stated, infant baptism is without warrant, either express or implied, in the Scriptures. There is no express command that infants should be baptized, nor is there any clear example of the baptism of infants. The passages held to imply infant baptism contain, when fairly interpreted, no reference to such practice.
Martin Childfont: I remember that statement of yours. You say that there are no passages in the Bible which imply infant baptism. We believe that one group of such passages implying infant baptism are those speaking of circumcision and baptism.
John: I know that in your doctrine infant baptism has taken the place of circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant. To this we reply that the view contradicts the New Testament idea of the Church, by making it an hereditary body, in which fleshly birth, and not the new birth, qualifies for membership. The fair understanding of this matter is that just as the national Israel typified the spiritual Israel, so the circumcision which immediately followed, not preceded natural birth, bids us baptize children, not before but after spiritual birth. The Christian Church is either a natural, hereditary body, or it was merely typified by the Jewish people. In the former case, baptism belongs to all children of Christian parents, and the Church is indistinguishable from the world. In the latter case, it belongs only to spiritual descendants, and therefore only to true believers. [1]
Martin: I agree with most of your thoughts in that statement. It is true that the Christian Church is not a hereditary body. It is a spiritual body in which the new birth alone qualifies for membership. We too believe that the Christian Church is the communion of saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ. It is composed of believers, saints, sheep who hear and follow their master's voice. [2] I also agree with you that the Christian Church is merely typified by the people of Israel, for Paul speaks of the "natural Israel" and the "Israel of God," or the Christian Church. [3]
Let us start from the Scriptural idea which you stated, that the natural Israel typified the spiritual Israel, the Israelitic nation the Christian Church.
In making His covenant with Abraham, God commanded him to take the sign of circumcision. He was an old man when he took this sign. It was to him, as Paul says, a seal of the righteousness of faith that he had before he was circumcised. [4] First, he had the justifying faith. Then he received the sign of the covenant as a seal of the righteousness of faith. The order of events was right, according to your way of thinking. But the children of his household were to be circumcised at the age of eight days, that is, those who were not already older. Thus, although circumcision was a sign of the righteousness of faith that Abraham had before the sign itself, the same sign was also given to the infants. God wanted to make them partakers of the privileges of His covenant in their early infancy. What do you say to that, brother John?
John: What you say of circumcision is simple Biblical truth, and I have nothing special to say about that. But it does not apply to baptism, for it did not come in the place of circumcision. Baptism has no connection with, and no reference to, circumcision whatever. If baptism, a Christian ordinance, were designed to take the place of circumcision, which was a Mosaic rite, wouldn't Christ have so stated, or the apostles have mentioned the fact? But no allusion is to be found to any such design. Circumcision was an external sign of an external union with a national congregation, to secure the separation of the Jews from all other nations and races, and their unity as a people. Baptism is an external sign of an inward spiritual work of grace already wrought in the heart. It indicates not the separation of races, but the unity of the true people of God, of all races, as believers in Christ, without distinction of blood or tongue. Jewish Christians for a time insisted on the practice of both circumcision and baptism, which proves they did not understand the one to have displaced the other. [5]
Martin: I did not state that baptism had taken the place of circumcision. But we have reason to make an investigation into the question whether baptism has any connection with, or any reference to, circumcision. Let's see what Paul says on the matter. "In whom (Christ) ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith." [6] Paul calls baptism the circumcision of Christ. How can you say that baptism has no reference to circumcision?
John: I admit that my statement was too categorical. According to those words of Paul, there is some kind of analogy between circumcision and baptism.
Martin: There is another part of your statement that needs correction. You said that circumcision was a Mosaic rite. A short while ago we discussed it as a rite of the Abrahamic covenant. Did you forget that?
John: I was ill-advised in those words too, following Hiscox. It did not occur to me that this statement of Hiscox was wrong.
Martin: It is quite usual that we follow authorities without examining the correctness of their statements. Circumcision was not a part of the Mosaic covenant but of the Abrahamic covenant. Thus it had a much larger application than the former. It was closely connected with justification by faith and the promise of the coming Savior.
You said that since the Jewish Christians for a time insisted on the practice of both circumcision and baptism, the latter could not displace the former. Do you think that the Jewish Christians were right in this insistence of theirs, or was it based on error -- in other words, was their attitude in harmony with the plan of God, or was it in conflict with it?
John: The Jewish Christians were, of course, in error. Otherwise Christian Jews should be circumcised even now.
Martin: Does an erroneous notion and practice prove anything?
John: I guess not. I accepted that argument of Hiscox without considering the fact than an erroneous idea proves nothing.
Martin: You said that circumcision was an external sign of an external union with a national congregation, to secure the separation of the Jews from all other nations, and their unity as a people. In saying so you forgot that circumcision was not a part of the Mosaic covenant, and was therefore not limited to Israel. The various nations that descended from Abraham used it, and not only Israel. But that is of little significance for us in our discussion. In a certain sense it is true that circumcision intended to secure the separation of Israel from other nations and to unite them as God's people. But it seems to me that in these very respects there is an analogy between circumcision and baptism. Doesn't baptism, too, intend to secure the separation of God's people from the people of this world, and to unite them?
John: Of course, it does. There seems to be an analogy between circumcision and baptism in these respects. Unfortunately baptism has served to separate the various groups of God's people in the New Covenant, instead of uniting them. But that is due to the Christians' failure to follow the Biblical teaching of baptism, not to baptism itself.
Martin: You are right in what you said. The very purpose of our discussion is to find out what the word of God really teaches on baptism, in order that one baptism should unite us too, as brothers.
According to your view, circumcision was an external sign of an external union with a national congregation, whereas baptism is an external sign of an inward spiritual grace already wrought in the heart. Do you think that, also, in the case of Abraham, circumcision was such an external sign of his belonging to a national congregation? Wasn't it, as Paul says, a seal of the righteousness of grace which Abraham had before circumcision? And wasn't the righteousness of faith an inward grace wrought in the heart?
John: Of course, it was. But wasn't circumcision also, as I said, an external sign of an external union with a national congregation?
Martin: Abraham was the first man ever to be circumcised. Don't you think that his circumcision was the pattern of the significance of that rite?
John: I think you are right there. I had never thought of it from that point of view.
Martin: You admit, then, that circumcision, too, was an external sign of an inward spiritual grace. This is obvious also from the fact that circumcision was the sign of the covenant which included the promise "to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." [7] The profit of the circumcision was, as Paul says, that "they were entrusted with the oracles of God." [8] God's promise to be their God and His word certainly meant much more than a mere external union with a national congregation.
I am sure you have read how Moses emphasized that mere external circumcision was not enough. A circumcision of the heart was needed in order that the Israelites be true people of God. "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be not stiffnecked." [9] Another time Moses promised, "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord, thy God, with all thine heart." [10] Jeremiah [11] and Apostle Paul [12] also speak of the circumcision of the heart as the spiritual meaning and fulfillment of the rite of circumcision. Don't you see, brother John, that the entire Bible teaches circumcision as an external sign of an internal grace?
John: Well, I must again concede that you are right and that I haven't been careful enough in studying and considering this matter.
Martin: The inward spiritual grace that circumcision signified was a renewal of the heart to faith, love to God, and willing obedience to Him. When Paul deals with the question of circumcision he shows that although it required faith, and some people were faithless, the covenant remained in force on God's side. It was broken only on the part of men. "For what if some were without faith? Shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God?" [13]
The words show that God's covenant and his faithfulness to it were unchanging and objectively valid realities, but men could enjoy the blessings of the covenant only through a personal faith and obedience. Its subjective blessings depended on faith. In the case of Abraham the personal prerequisite, namely, faith, preceded the rite, but otherwise the inward circumcision or renewal to faith and obedience followed afterward.
John: I must admit again that your explanation seems to follow the statements of the Bible.
Martin: You admitted some time ago that circumcision and baptism are analogous, since Paul calls baptism the circumcision of Christ, or Christian circumcision. In the case of Abraham, circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith that he had before this rite. It corresponds to the baptism of people who are converted before baptism, as Cornelius and his household were, and as often happens even in our time. But most Israelites received circumcision as infants; when they reached the age of discretion they had to appropriate its blessings and fulfill its requirements afterward, although the majority of them never did so. Here circumcision is analogous to infant baptism. Isn't it, brother John?
John: I cannot deny that it is. But a mere analogy doesn't suffice to establish a Christian doctrine.
Martin: You are right; a mere analogy is not enough here. But I wish to add one more thought on the relationship between circumcision and baptism. Paul calls baptism the circumcision of Christ, and an undeniable fact is that, according to the plan of God, the use of circumcision was to cease when the use of baptism started in its full Christian sense after Pentecost. You deny that baptism took the place of circumcision. Nevertheless, in my view that thought is implied in the two facts that I mentioned. I cannot, of course, force you to follow my line of thought, but in my view this logic is inescapable.
John: I see now that the idea of baptism in the place of circumcision can be defended with the Bible. I can no longer oppose it categorically, as I did at the outset.
Martin: I am glad to see that you are willing to admit facts, even when they are in conflict with your former views. You probably think that God's attitude toward infants in the New Covenant isn't the same as it was in the Old Covenant. Am I right?
John: Well, I think you are. The two covenants are so different that although circumcision was to be given to infants, baptism should not be given to babes who do not understand what is spoken and done to them.
Martin: Although there are differences between the Old and New Covenants, there are also similarities. They are analogous in many respects, not only with regard to circumcision and baptism. These correspondences are due to the fact that the New Covenant is not absolutely new, but is built on the foundation of the Old Covenant. The entire Old Covenant was preparatory to the New Covenant. In both covenants men were saved by grace alone, through faith, and in both of them believers had to show their faith by love and obedience. Or do you think that Abraham, David, and other saints of the Old Covenant were saved by works, and not by grace through faith?
John: Of course not. The two covenants are similar in that respect.
Martin: A difference was that the Old Covenant people put their trust in the coming Savior, whereas the New Covenant people put their trust in the Savior who has come. The Holy Spirit worked in the Old Covenant, but He was not given to dwell in the hearts of believers in the same sense as in the New Covenant. But we are discussing God's attitude toward infants. Let's turn to that question in the New Covenant.
[1] Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (5th ed., revised and enlarged; New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1896), p. 537.
[2] The Augsburg Confession (VII) and Smalcald Articles. The Reformed Churches teach about the same. The Belgian Confession (XXVII) defines the Church as "a holy congregation and assembly of true Christian believers."
[3] Gal. 6:16. I Cor. 10:18.
[4] Rom. 4:11.
[5] Edward T. Hiscox, The New Directory for Baptist Churches (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1894), pp. 487f. In recent times a certain Baptist has said about the same thing: "There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between circumcision and baptism." (Quoted by J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., "Both sides of the Baptism Question," reprinted from The Bible Today, 1944-49, p. 14.)
[6] Col. 2:11f.
[7] Gen. 17:7.
[8] Rom. 3:1-2.
[9] Deut. 10:16.
[10] Deut. 30:6.
[11] Jer. 4:4; 6:10; 9:26.
[12] Rom. 2:28, 29; 15:8. Phil. 3:3.
[13] Rom. 3:3.
[Read more selections from "Scriptural Baptism" by Uuras Saarnivaara]