Baptism Professes What Circumcision Demanded

from pp. 351-352 of Waldron’s A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession:

If the New Covenant is not identical with the Old Covenant, how can it be said that baptism is identical with circumcision?

The specified difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant prohibits the continuation of infant membership in the covenant. That specified difference is that the people of God in the New Covenant will not break the covenant as Israel did and also that all the New Covenant people of God will know the Lord (Jer. 31:34). Yes, circumcision was a sign of covenant membership and so also is baptism. We admit also that baptism should be given to all who are members of the New Covenant, to all the true New Testament circumcised. But who are they?

The covenant people is no longer a physical, but a spiritual nation (Matt. 21:43). Hence physical bloodlines do not give membership in this nation or permit participation in its covenant signs!

Baptism, therefore, professes what circumcision demanded. Circumcision did demand a new heart, indeed, but it did not profess a new heart. Baptism professes a new heart. Though there is a close relationship between baptism and circumcision, they are not identical. The paedo-baptist argument which equates the two ordinances is, therefore, invalid.

My next post will feature Waldron’s response to the paedo-baptist’s assertion that credo-baptists are no different from them because they too have unregenerate church members.