The sign of the covenant: baptism and infant baptism

Signs and seals

And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

Romans 4:11

Paul describes Abraham's circumcision with two words. It was a sign, and it was a seal. A sign points to something and shows it. A seal, sphragis (σφραγίς), is like the stamp on a document: it confirms that what is written is true. Abraham believed and was counted righteous first; circumcision then sealed it. Matthew Henry says it was appointed to confirm God's promises and "to assure him of his being already a real partaker of the righteousness of faith" Matthew Henry.

The Reformed confessions describe the sacraments in the same terms. The Westminster Confession calls them "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God", given to represent Christ and his benefits, to confirm our interest in him, and "to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world" Westminster Confession 27.1. The Heidelberg Catechism calls them "holy visible signs and seals, appointed of God" so that he may more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the gospel Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 66. A sacrament adds no new promise to the word. It sets the same gospel promise before our eyes and confirms it.

What baptism signifies and seals

Under the new covenant that sign and seal is baptism. "All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3), and "all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27).

He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:5

The Confession teaches that baptism is not only the solemn admission of the one baptised into the visible church, but also "a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life" Westminster Confession 28.1. Matthew Henry, on this verse in Titus, keeps both sides together: "The work is inward and spiritual; this is outwardly signified and sealed in this ordinance. Slight not this outward sign and seal; yet rest not in the outward washing" Matthew Henry.

How then is baptism related to salvation? The Confession calls it a great sin to despise or neglect it, "yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it; or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated" Westminster Confession 28.5. It adds that "the efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered"; yet by the right use of it the promised grace is really given by the Holy Spirit to those to whom it belongs, in God's appointed time Westminster Confession 28.6. A person baptised as an infant who comes to faith many years later finds that the sign has been speaking God's promise all along.

Other churches speak more directly of what baptism does. The Catholic Church teaches that baptism washes away original sin and all personal sin and gives new birth as a child of God Catechism of the Catholic Church. Lutherans teach that baptism is a washing of new birth in the Holy Spirit that works forgiveness of sins and gives eternal salvation to all who believe God's promise Luther, Small Catechism. The Reformed confessions also receive the Bible's language of "the washing of new birth" (Titus 3:5), but they distinguish the sign from the grace it signifies, and confess that the Spirit gives that grace, not tied to the moment of baptism, in God's appointed time.

For believers and their children

The Reformed churches baptise the children of believers, because God's covenant has embraced parents and children together from the start. God promised Abraham to be "your God and the God of your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:7), and commanded that the sign be given "when he is eight days old" (Genesis 17:12). Circumcision sealed the righteousness of faith, yet it was given to infants who could not yet profess faith. The sign speaks first not of the child's faith but of God's promise.

At Pentecost Peter speaks in the same pattern.

This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off — to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.

Acts 2:39

Matthew Henry comments: "still the encouraging promises are to us and our children" Matthew Henry. Paul sets "the circumcision performed by Christ" alongside baptism (Colossians 2:11-12). He says that the children of a believing parent are not unclean, "but now they are holy" (1 Corinthians 7:14). Lydia "and her household had been baptized" (Acts 16:15), and so were the jailer "and all his household" (Acts 16:33). And Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them!" (Mark 10:14).

The Heidelberg Catechism gathers this up. Infants, "as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God"; redemption by Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit who works faith are promised to them no less than to adults; so they too are to be received into the church by baptism, the sign of the covenant, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as circumcision did in the old covenant, in place of which baptism is now appointed Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 74. The Westminster Confession says the same: "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized" Westminster Confession 28.4. As to mode, "Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person" Westminster Confession 28.3.

A baptised child is called to grow up and own the covenant in faith. In Korean Presbyterian churches a child baptised in infancy later professes faith publicly in a rite called 입교 (admission) and comes to the Lord's Table. The Larger Catechism speaks of "the needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism": all our life long, and especially in temptation and when we see others baptised, we are to remember with thanks what our baptism means and what it seals, and live by faith Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 167.

The Baptist conviction, and what we share

Baptists and many free churches baptise those who repent and profess faith, from a deep conviction. In Acts, "Those who embraced his message were baptized" (Acts 2:41), and the new covenant promises that all its members "will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest" (Jeremiah 31:34); so, they hold, its sign belongs with the believer's own confession. The Second London Confession follows Westminster closely in much, but it holds that only those who actually profess repentance towards God and faith in and obedience to the Lord Jesus are proper subjects of baptism, and it holds immersion to be the right mode Second London Baptist Confession, ch. 29. Reformed Christians honour these brothers and sisters for the weight they give to baptism and to personal faith, and answer that under the new covenant too the promise is "to you and your children" (Acts 2:39).

For all their differences, these churches agree that baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit marks us as Christ's, and that its promise is to be embraced by faith. The doctrine course's lesson on baptism and the Lord's Supper compares the churches' teaching; the other sacrament of the covenant is taken up in The Supper: Christ's spiritual presence. Baptism is God's sign that before we ever took hold of him, he took hold of us.

Practice