Baptist Covenant Theology

Covenants have signs, signs that you are a part of them, that they've been implemented, that they've been started, that you are part of it, you agree to it.

Covenants have signs, like the name change or the ring for marriage. Now here God Almighty tells him, you shall keep my covenant.

In verse 10, by taking the sign of circumcision, the covenant comes with a sign. And for this covenant, to these literal offspring, it is circumcision.

Now remember we said a few weeks ago that the promises have a literal and a spiritual fulfillment.

Now here, for the sign of the covenant, there is the literal and the physical on the one hand, and then there's the ultimate and the spiritual, the fulfillment of it on the other hand.

The sign of the covenant for the literal children of Abraham is circumcision, in verses 10 and 11. The boys are supposed to be circumcised on the eighth day of their life, in verse 12.

But as the book of Galatians forcefully argues, we, that is the children of Abraham by faith, spiritual children of Abraham, we do not have to be literal children of Abraham.

And that means we do not have to take the same sign to receive the blessings of the

Lord's covenant, of the Lord's new covenant with us. Indeed, Paul says, if we take the sign here, if we take the sign here that Abraham is told to take, and we think through that, that will put us in a covenant with God, that we get

God's blessings, we get salvation, we get His rewards. We're trusting in that and not trusting in Christ.

And in Galatians chapter 5, verse 2, Paul says about that, that if you accept circumcision with that attitude, with that mind,

Christ will be of no advantage to you. So you can believe in that sign or you can believe in Christ.

Not in both. The sign changed. Our sign of the covenant, first in Colossians chapter 2, verse 11, is the spiritual one, the fulfillment of it.

It says there, in Him also you were circumcised. That's the sign of the covenant.

With a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.

And this is the circumcision of the heart, which was foretold already in the law, in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 6, where it says, and the

Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that, this is the purpose statement, the

Lord your God will circumcise your heart, the heart of your offspring for the purpose and the effect of that you will love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live.

Think about that. The sign of the covenant, then for us, foretold already in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy, is we will get the mark of the covenant in our heart that will have the effect of making us love

Him with all our being. Notice God does it. He does it to our heart.

And if He does it, we love Him. He does it so that we will love Him and live.

And that circumcision of the heart then makes us one of His people. We're in covenant with Him.

We are now the true Israel. In Romans chapter 2 verse 29, a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the

Spirit, not by the letter. That is, our sign of the covenant is in our hearts where God has given us a love for Him.

How can we know if you have that sign? Do you love Him? And it's not by the letter. It's not by a ritual.

That is God's covenant of grace with us to save us. If He makes that covenant, He then gives us the sign of the covenant which is a circumcised heart that loves the

Lord. So it's not baptism. Reformed people who baptize babies say baptism is the sign of the covenant.

And so they baptize their babies just like Abraham here is told to circumcise them. Because they say baptism has replaced circumcision.

But the Bible never says that. It says our sign of the covenant is in our heart giving us a love for the

Lord. And now that will result, baptism is not done away, but that will result if we have that new heart that gives us a love for the

Lord, that will result in us being baptized. Because if you now love the Lord with your

God, with all your heart, with all your soul, you will then want to obey Him. And so you will be baptized.

But baptism doesn't put you in a covenant or a relationship with God. It shows that you already have one.

Now those who argue that baptism is the new sign for the new covenant then say that just as babies were circumcised and considered in the covenant with God, chapter 17 here in the

Old Testament, so too babies now should be baptized and considered in covenant with God.

That is the main argument of what's called covenant theologies, defense of infant baptism.

They say there is a complete continuity, that is there's nothing changes, that the sign of the covenant, like here in Genesis 17, the sign of the covenant is applied to infants today just as it was to them then.

Continuity. And I believe in the continuity of the covenants. That there is one covenant of grace that's administered here by the

Abrahamic covenant, later in the Sinai covenant, and then the covenant with David. And that Christ fulfills all those covenants.

They're not done away, they're fulfilled and we live in them. And He gives us the new covenant and everything in the old covenants, like Abraham covenant, everything in the old covenants is not explicitly changed, is retained.

There is a continuity of the covenants. For example, the food laws were explicitly changed.

In Mark chapter 7 verse 19, Jesus declared all foods clean. So you can eat pork or shrimp.

The Sabbath law was changed so we're not judged for Sabbath keeping, at least not on the seventh day. That's why we're meeting today on the first day of the week and not the seventh.

Everything else, like the psalms, is retained. The psalms were given as songs and instructions for worship.

It's not really clear whether they're from the Sinai covenant. The Sinai covenant didn't actually call for them, but it was in effect at the time. But during the

Sinai covenant and the Davidic covenant, many of them coming directly from David. Psalm 101. And they serve that purpose.

They serve the same purpose for us as they did originally. They come from to give instructions for worship and actually songs for psalms, or lyrics for psalms.

They are endorsed in the New Testament twice, in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 and Colossians chapter 3 verse 16. And so we not only sing them, but we follow their instructions, like in singing and making music in Psalm 101.

It tells us to make music. So we do. That's not a hard burden. That's not a burdensome command, is it?

His commands are not burdensome. They're good for us. Including new psalms. Psalms tells us to make new psalms.

So we're not restricted to the psalms. Even the New Testament tells us to sing psalms. It also says hymns and spiritual songs.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says to the church, you come, so everyone has a hymn, has a word, it's fine, but make sure it's done in order.

That's the important thing. You're not restricted to the book of psalms, but you should be singing psalms too.

Using musical instruments, you have those. The book of psalms tells us to use them, because psalms tells us you can.

Again, his commands are not burdensome. So whatever is not cancelled, continues. Most of it continues.

There is a continuity of the covenants. But here, the sign of the covenant is explicitly changed.

After all, if the Lord had intended a complete continuity of the old covenant with the new, everything, like, you know, again, those arguing for infant baptism say, well, it's just like in the old covenant.

So we baptize infants. Well, it's continuity. It's the same. So we baptize just like they circumcise.

Well, if the Lord intended a complete continuity, then why not simply continue circumcision?

That's kind of an obvious question, isn't it? If there's no change, why did the sign of the covenant change?

Why not require Christians to be circumcised, as some were proposing in the early church? And Galatians is written for those people.

And Paul's words about them were very strong. In other words, the fact that circumcision is not our sign is a sign that there was some change.

Besides, those who use this passage to argue for baptizing babies, they don't do it on the eighth day. You know, if you were to say there's complete continuity except baptism replaces, you can just kind of take out, cut and paste, wherever it says circumcise, you put baptize.

If that's the case, you should be baptizing on the eighth day. They don't do that. They change that.

Well, let's put it another way. Let's attack the question in another way. Are we in our covenant, this new covenant, because of our ancestry, because of our parents, because of their faith, we're in a covenant with God?

Of course not. Absolutely not. That may have been true for Isaac. It's not true for us.

Some of us here did not have Christian parents. But now you are in a covenant with God.

One cannot inherit this covenant or kind of pass it down like a family heirloom.

It depends entirely on the Lord's gracious work. That's why Nicodemus had such a hard time understanding this.

He was supposed to be a teacher of the law. And Jesus says to him, you must be born again. It's not good enough just to be born to be one of God's people, to be in the kingdom of God.

You have to be born again. And Nicodemus goes, why? What are you talking about? I don't understand. Because his whole idea was that you're born into God's covenant.

You're born into God's kingdom. It's who your parents, your ancestors are. And Jesus says, no, it's not. The Spirit blows where He wills.

The Spirit makes God's people out of any people. You must be born again.

And we have no way of knowing if a small child is born again. It can be. John the

Baptist was apparently from his mother's womb, but we have no way of knowing. It is a blessing to be born into a

Christian home. And 1 Corinthians tells us that such children are set apart, they're sanctified in a way.

That is why I pray for the children of our members, every service. But the New Testament never talks about covenant children, or shows us anyone being baptized on the basis of someone else's faith.

It never shows that. It never shows, well, my dad is the jailer and the Philippi, and he got saved, so I'm going to go along and do it because of him.

A baby being baptized because their parents were believers. It never shows anything like that. The command is to be baptized by the

Lord Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 28, verse 19. It's for the church to baptize disciples.

Go make disciples, baptizing them. Who? The disciples. How can we know if a baby is a disciple?

We can't. And so we can't baptize them. Baptism is a sign for disciples to point to their commitment to the

Lord. It's for disciples to say, I have a new heart.

I've been born again. God has made the sign of the covenant in my heart.

That's what we say with baptism. For that matter, though, some Baptists need to be reminded that we can manipulate small children into being baptized.

It's not even particularly difficult. A small kid wants to please you. Say this prayer after me. Pronounce him saved.

We can do that without really knowing if they are really disciples either. We need to see their life to see if they have indeed been brought by the

Lord into a covenant or to a relationship with Him. If they have been circumcised at heart.

If they have, they will love the Lord with their whole heart and with their whole soul and they will live.

They will have new life. They will be disciples. And so they will be baptized at the right time.

So it says baptism is the sign of the circumcision of the heart. We should reserve it for people who show that sign.