The Pastor's Blog

Scripturally, covenant is inextricably linked to baptism.  Reformed paedobaptists (those who baptize the infants of believers) see a direct link between the Abrahamic and New Covenants, and thus also see a direct link between circumcision (the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant) and baptism (the sign of the New Covenant).  They have argued for one covenant in two distinct administrations.  Reformed credobaptists (those who baptize believers on the basis of their profession of faith) believe that the Abrahamic and New Covenants are distinct covenants, and therefore we cannot draw a direct line between circumcision and baptism.  In order to untangle some of this I offer 41 theses below on baptism, circumcision, and the covenants.  These theses are in no particular order, and some of them likely overlap.  I give credit to my seminary professor Dr. Stephen Wellum, from whose article, “Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants,”¹ I have derived many of these theses.  Some of the theses are likely direct quotations from his article.  While I offer him credit for what is true and good below, but I will take responsibility for any errors.

1. Not all who are of the seed of Abraham are of the seed of Christ, but all who were of the seed of Abraham were to receive circumcision.
2. Circumcision was initiatory into the Abrahamic covenant, but it was not initiatory into the covenant of grace. There is a difference.
3. Old Testament Israel was a community of regenerate and unregenerate members, but the church is a community of regenerate members. And each person, male or female, who displays the fruit of regeneration is to be marked by baptism.
4. Each male in the entire Old Testament community was to be marked by circumcision, and each person, male or female, in the church is to be marked by baptism.
5. The promise which is “unto you, and to your children” (Acts 2:39) is also unto “those who are far off” and “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
6. When Peter spoke those words in Acts 2:39 he was not necessarily speaking them to regenerate people.
7. Circumcision was applied to males within the covenant community whether they had circumcised hearts or not. Baptism is to be applied to all, male or female, within a covenant community of people with circumcised hearts.
8. Circumcision does not exclusively represent a heart reality in the circumcised, but baptism does in the baptized.
9. Circumcision represents a national reality, but baptism does not.
10. It is anachronistic to say circumcision represents circumcision of the heart in the one circumcised, but circumcision does point to the need for the circumcised man to be circumcised in the heart.
11. If baptism replaced circumcision in all ways, then Paul could have argued as much when dealing with the Judaizers in Galatians. He didn’t.
12. The Abrahamic covenant contains the seed of the new covenant, but the Abrahamic covenant is not the new covenant.
13. There are more covenants than the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.
14. The covenant of grace is a theological category, but not a biblical term.
15. Believers with their children are not included in the new covenant like they are in the Abrahamic covenant.
16. The Abrahamic covenant gets us to the new covenant, but it is not the new covenant.
17. The Abrahamic covenant anticipates the new covenant, but it is not the new covenant.
18. Between the Abrahamic covenant and the new covenant there is both continuity and discontinuity.
19. There are at least four senses in which Scripture translates seed (Genesis 17:17): (1) natural descendants of Abraham, (2) the natural and special descendants of Abraham (e.g. Isaac, not Ishmael), (3) the Messiah, and (4) the spiritual seed of Abraham, ie. the regenerate.
20. It is a mistake to equate the natural seed of Abraham who are circumcised in the flesh with the spiritual seed of Abraham who circumcised in the heart.
21. The spiritual seed of Abraham who are circumcised in the heart are exclusively regenerate, but the natural seed of Abraham who are circumcised in the flesh are not exclusively regenerate.
22. Infant baptism brings people who do not have the marks of being in the new covenant into the new covenant community.
23. People within the Abrahamic covenant were justified before God the same way that people in the new covenant are saved: that is all people of all time have been justified by faith in the promise of God.
24. All new covenant members have direct access to God, but the members of the Abrahamic covenant have their access to God mediated by the priesthood.
25. The new covenant is not a renewed version of the Abrahamic covenant.
26. The new covenant was ratified and inaugurated by the death of Christ.
27. Baptism symbolizes union with Christ, by grace through faith.
28. Baptism symbolizes a realm transfer from death to life.
29. Baptism and circumcision do not carry the same meaning, nor do thy signify the same spiritual realities.
30. Baptism and circumcision have parallels.
31. Baptism and circumcision are tied to different covenants.
32. God’s regenerate people were in the covenant of grace before Abraham, but we have no record of a sign like circumcision or baptism prior to Abraham.
33. Circumcision marked out a physical seed in preparation for the coming Messiah, by establishing a nation and setting apart a male lineage.
34. Circumcision is typological of heart circumcision as a mark of the community.
35. Circumcision points to the new covenant when all within the community will be circumcised in heart just as all males in the old covenant community were circumcised in the flesh.
36. Baptism and circumcision are both initiatory rights.
37. Colossians 2:11-13 does not offer a one to one equation between circumcision and baptism.
38. Circumcision finds its fulfillment in the circumcision of Christ, the last one to be covenentally circumcised, signifying the end of the chain of circumcised men from Abraham to Christ.
39. Baptism testifies that we are united to Christ, not that we might be united to Christ.
40. Circumcision did not signify that the descendants of Abraham were all united to Christ.
41. Saying that circumcision and baptism have a one to one correlation confuses promise with fulfillment.

1. Dr. Wellum’s article can be found in Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ  (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006), 97-162.