I was asked to debate baptism with a Christian Reformed pastor. As we talked back and forth for more than two hours, it was clear how much we shared in common but also how Christians from our traditions can often misunderstand each other on this issue. As I talked with my fellow pastor, it was clear how deeply we both love the Lord and the Scriptures but also how we disagree on whether infants should be baptized.

What Baptists misunderstand about the infant baptism position

Many Baptists assume that Christian Reformed believers are just disobedient. After all, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38) and since a baby can’t repent, infant baptism must be a meaningless ritual that parents do out of superstition to get a blessing from God. That kind of thinking completely misinterprets the thoughtful intention of most Christian Reformed believers.

What Christian Reformed believers misunderstand about the believer’s baptism position

I suspect that many Christian Reformed people assume a little theological naivete on the part of Baptists. Since Jewish babies are circumcised as a sign of the old covenant, surely the babies of new covenant believers should be baptized as a sign of the new covenant. Don’t Baptists read their Bibles? Can’t they see how the covenants relate to each other?

The real debate hinges on an understanding of the old and new covenants

It doesn’t help our unity to assume the worst of one another. The Christian Reformed position sees the old and new covenants in parallel. If the covenants are essentially the same, then the corresponding signs of the covenant should also be treated the same. The logic is sound, but how similar are the covenants?

While circumcision was rolled into the Mosaic covenant, it was the sign initially given as part of the covenant with Abraham. God promised Abraham descendants, land, and blessing. Although Abraham “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6), faith is never stated as a requirement of the Abrahamic covenant, and righteousness is never promised as a result.

All you had to do to be a part of this deal was to get circumcised. It was only after entering the covenant through physical circumcision that people were called to circumcise their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:16). Unfortunately, most did not. The old covenant pointed to salvation. It was not fundamentally a covenant of salvation the way the new covenant is.

As the Israelites experienced the failure of the Mosaic covenant and were sent into exile, God promised that He would make a new covenant with them. Interestingly, in Jeremiah 31:32, God says that the new covenant would not be like the old covenant. Why? Because instead of just descendants, land, and blessing, God would write His laws on the people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33) and forgive their sins (Jeremiah 31:34).

It is precisely because the new covenant is so different than the old covenant that it requires repentance and faith to enter into it. When Peter calls people to respond to the good news, he says, “repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). There is no corresponding, “repent and be circumcised” in the old covenant because it merely pointed to salvation, it never included it.

When the New Testament does relate circumcision and baptism in Colossians 2:11-12, it’s clear that baptism doesn’t correspond to physical circumcision but rather to the internal circumcision of the heart that Moses and the prophets spoke of.

Whereas Moses appealed to people in the old covenant who had been circumcised physically to circumcise their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:6), Paul speaks to people in the new covenant who had been baptized and said, “you were circumcised … by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11).

To me, what’s most dangerous about baptizing infants is that you’re declaring things about them that aren’t true or that baptism never teaches. The example of the Ephesian disciples in Acts 19 demonstrates that people who have not been baptized as believers are called to do so even if they were previously baptized before fully embracing the gospel.

Whatever your tradition, God calls all of us to humbly relate to other believers and continue to examine our convictions in light of the Scriptures because we’ll all give an account to God for how we’ve responded to Him.

In awe of Him,

Paul