Before Easter, Steve Kneale on his blog drew our attention to a recent article giving 5 reasons to reconsider infant baptism. I agree with Steve’s responses and in fact, the arguments are not significantly new but I did want to give a little bit more attention to two of them. One here and the other in a follow on article.
First, the writer argues that if you read the New Testament with an open mind, then you wouldn’t find any indication that God’s people were being told to stop including their children automatically in the Covenant.
Steve rightly points out that the insistence that circumcised people needed baptism is a clear indication that something was meant to stop. Part of the problem is that there has been a tendency to assume that baptising someone replaces circumcision in the New Testament. However, when you look closely at what Paul does in his letters you will realise that baptism doesn’t replace circumcision, circumcision of the heart replaces circumcision of the foreskin. Baptism seems to have already been an optional rite available for those Gentiles wishing to become part of God’s people. So, what we see in the New Testament is that circumcision of the heart is necessary for all, whether or not they are ethnic Jews, whether or not they have had external circumcision. For those who have repented and so had heart circumcision, regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile, baptism becomes necessary.
When you get to Romans 9-11, it becomes explicitly clear that you are part of God’s people by faith in the promise, not by genetics or circumcision or any works of the law. It seems to be that when you read Matthew to Revelation that the text is very clearly shouting out to stop various things, including the presumption that you are in the covenant because of anything other than justification by faith. This mean that people were being told to stop assuming their kids were automatically believers. The consequence of that is that they are by no means being invited to start something (baptism of those kids) that they were not already doing.
The reality of course, and I’m sure many a parent or school teacher will get this is that if “sorry seems to be the hardest word” to say, then “Stop” seems to be the hardest word to hear.
Faithroots 