Covenant Signs

With this knowledge of the level of covenant discontinuity, the covenant signs, circumcision and baptism, can be compared. Steven Wellum further discusses that under the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision “marked out a national entity. … God chose one man and his seed to grow into a nation to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. Circumcision…served as a physical sign to mark out a nation and to distinguish [Israel] as his people.”1 Although this signified their national heritage as God’s people regardless of the faithfulness of individual members, circumcision also showed the need for the Israelites’ hearts to be circumcised.2 As God promised them, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live” (Deuteronomy 30:6). Given the various meanings of circumcision and the mixed nature of the covenant, we can thus conclude that circumcision pointed believing Israelites to the covenant that God made with Abraham. As God had fulfilled his promise to make them into a great nation, He would also fulfill his promise to send the Messiah who would provide the means by which their hearts would be truly circumcised, through which His people would enter into the new, unbreakable covenant.

In order to better understand baptism and its connection with circumcision, the first sign must be first understood. Paul links these where he writes:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (Colossians 2:11-12).

Here, P.T. O’Brien explains, “Within the OT [circumcision] came to be used in a transferred and ethical sense pointing to the ‘circumcision of the heart.’ … Here true circumcision was understood eschatologically, since it served as the basis for the everlasting covenant.”3 Thus, not only did physical circumcision incorporate the Israelites into the covenant community, it signified the spiritual circumcision that would ultimately be secured through Christ. He further believes that Christ’s circumcision “[denotes] the circumcision that Christ underwent, that is, his crucifixion, of which his literal circumcision was at best a token by way of anticipation.”4 Alternatively, Douglas Moo believes that this refers to “Christian conversion, pictured as a ‘circumcision’ performed on us by Christ, who removed not a piece of physical ‘flesh,’ but the enveloping, enervating power of our ‘fleshly’ nature or propensity.”5 Despite the disagreement between these two commentators, a strong case can be made that both are true. Christ underwent a form of circumcision on the cross, where he was cut off (Isa. 53:8) through his suffering and death, just as flesh was cut off through physical circumcision. Through his circumcision, he secured spiritual circumcision, which he applied to his elect people by regenerating their hearts. As physical circumcision ultimately points to spiritual circumcision and the inner spiritual reality of regeneration secured by Christ, it naturally follows that baptism will reflect this under the New Covenant.

With regard to baptism, O’Brien thus concludes, “As the burial of Christ set the seal upon his death, so the Colossians’ burial with him in baptism shows that they were truly involved in his death and laid in his grave. … The burial proves that a real death has occurred and the old life is now a thing of the past.”6 Furthermore, as Christ was raised from the dead, so we are “also raised with him in resurrection.”7 Wellum succinctly explains, “[Baptism] signifies a believer’s union with Christ…and all the benefits that result from that union. It testifies that one has entered into the realities of the new covenant… .”8 As baptism signifies the dead old nature being raised up to a new, regenerate person who has been united to Christ, baptism must be restricted to those who profess Christ.

On the paedobaptist side, Mark Ross claims, “Paul used the idea of circumcision to speak to the Colossians of the cleansing or purification that they had received in Christ.”9 Although this understanding of circumcision is similar to O’Brien’s in this context, he diverges on its relationship to baptism. On baptism, he states, “The baptism of Colossians 2:12 can only be the reality of the Spirit’s working to regenerate the heart and free the soul from the dominion of sin, [however], people can receive water baptism… without receiving what is signified and sealed by it.”10 Thus, as “baptism and circumcision have the same meaning…the claim that baptism has replaced circumcision stands upon firm ground.”11 As there was great continuity in comparison with the Old and the New Covenant, so there is great continuity in their accompanying signs and recipients according to the paedobaptist.

In a direct response to Ross’ claims, Richard Barcellos explains that “v. 12 speaks of a spiritual, vital union with Christ effected through faith. This presupposes regeneration (v. 11)12, an idea that Ross affirms as well.13 Thus, if v. 11 is speaking of regeneration and v. 12 speaks of “the Spirit’s working to regenerate the heart,”14 this passage can essentially be paraphrased as “You were regenerated when you were regenerated.”15. This is a cumbersome and confusing way to understand the text. The logic of Paul’s argument is much better served by understanding it as our spiritual circumcision. Regeneration leads to our union with Christ, represented by the baptism of the believer.

Union with Christ

In his discussion of the covenants and baptism, Jewett writes, “Infant baptism…stresses the covenant idea as the unifying concept of redemptive history to the point of suppressing the movement of redemptive history, a movement from the age of anticipation and promise to the age of realization and fulfillment”16. From this, we can infer that the New Covenant is a fulfillment of the all of the promises that were given in the Old. Baptism is therefore the fulfillment of circumcision. As the New Covenant is unmixed, the corresponding sign must only be given to those who profess faith in Christ. Similar to Colossians 2, Paul writes, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). The connection with new life to baptism is very strong and is very difficult to understand if we are to baptize infants. Douglas Moo explains, “‘Burial with Christ’ is a description of the participation of the believer in Christ’s own burial, a participation that is mediated by baptism. … Baptism stands for the whole conversion-initiation experience … [and] it is the purpose of our burial with Christ that ‘we might walk in newness of life.’”17

With such a strong connection between baptism and new spiritual life, it cannot be concluded that infants should be baptized, as they are incapable of the repentance and faith that is necessary for regeneration and union with Christ; only baptism upon conversion can make sense of this verse. As G.R. Beasley-Murray writes, “In baptism the Gospel proclamation and the hearing of faith become united in one indissoluble act, at one and the same time an act of grace and faith, an act of God and man.”18 In baptism, we have a sign of God’s grace on the sinner who responds in faith, demonstrating the death of the old, sinful man, and the raising to life of the new. Through this New Covenant sign, the church is given a beautiful picture of being united to Christ in his death and resurrection, where believers are able to celebrate what Christ has done for His people.

  1. Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: A Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 155.
  2. Ibid., 156.
  3. P.T. O’Brien, Word Biblical Commentary: Colossians, Philemon. (Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 44:115.
  4. Ibid., 117.
  5. D.J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), 178.
  6. O’Brien, 118.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Schreiner and Wright, 159.
  9. Greg Strawbridge, ed., The Case of Covenantal Infant Baptism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2003), 102.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid., 106
  12. Richard C. Barcellos, “An Exegetical Appraisal of Colossians 2:11-12,” Reformed Baptist Theological Review 2, no. 1 (January 2005): 19.
  13. Strawbridge, 101.
  14. Ibid., 102.
  15. Barcellos, 19.
  16. Paul K. Jewett, Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978), 235-236.
  17. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 363, 366.
  18. G.R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), 272.