Those who are involved in the dialogue between Baptists and Presbyterians concerning whether or not infants ought to be baptized (I am a Presbyterian), know that the main argument for the baptism of infants is based on a continuity between the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Testament, which can be formulated as follows: "Just as children were circumcised under the Old Testament, so also children ought to be baptized under the New Testament."
There have been two typical responses given by credobaptists to this sort of theological reasoning. One type of response stresses discontinuity between circumcision and baptism, and between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. This is generally done by more modern Baptists.
However, the classic Baptist theologians of the 17th century granted that there was indeed unity between the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant. Such was the case with a writer like Nehemiah Coxe (d. 1688), and more modernly so with Paul K. Jewett (as found in his book Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace).
Gavin Ortlund (whose videos on Roman Catholicism, I must commend to you) has offered a similar argument, under the assumption that there is indeed some connection between circumcision and baptism, but that even if this were granted, this couldn't prove that infants should be baptized, because the group of infants that were circumcised under the Old Covenant are not the same as the infants that being baptized under the New Covenant (in Presbyterianism). Here is how he formulates his argument:
"This appeal to continuity with circumcision is at the core of the Reformed paedobaptist argument....But this appeal to continuity raises a question. Who exactly were the proper recipients of circumcision? To whom is Warfield referring with the word children? Circumcision is given in Genesis 17:9 to 'you and your seed [offspring, descendants; Hebrew zerah] after you, for the generations to come.' The individuals in view here are the intergenerational descendants of Abraham. The faith of an Israelite child’s parents was not what determined the child’s right to circumcision; it was the child’s association with the nation of Israel. In other words, the lines of covenant throughout the Old Testament weren’t drawn around individual believing families, but around the national family of Abraham. It wasn’t the 'children of believers” who had the right to the sacrament of initiation, but the 'children of Abraham.' So, given paedobaptist presuppositions, why not baptize the grandchildren of believers, too? If we’re really building off continuity with the Old Testament precedent, why stop at one generation?" (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/why-not-grandchildren-an-argument-against-reformed-paedobaptism/)
Dr. Ortlund is very clear in saying that whether or not an Israelite parent was a believer or not was not what determined whether or not their children had a right to circumcision. This is the essential bottom line of his overall argument.
The problem with this argument (and many other credobaptist arguments) is that it overemphasizes the physical and ethnic aspects of the Old Covenant to the point where faith and/or loyalty no longer has any real significance in covenant membership within Israel. This is not the picture we see within the Old Testament. I will offer a couple pieces of evidences to show this.
Excommunication from the Old Covenant
In the Old Testament, we see many times that certain sins or actions of Israelites could lead to them being "cut off" from the covenant community:
"24 Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 18:24-30)
"A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:27)
"6 If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you." (Deuteronomy 13:6-11)
"2 If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones." (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)
Each of these passages show that loyalty to the God of Israel was a key and important aspect of the Old Covenant people.
Dr. Ortlund responds by saying that this view of the Abrahamic covenant is not in agreement with the historic Reformed view, and John Calvin's commentary on Genesis 17 in particular (we will examine this point later).
Ortlund's other response is as follows:
"Throughout the Old Testament, apostate, unbelieving Israelites still fall under the appellation “my people.” The rite continues generation after generation, at times so far apart from inward appropriation that the prophet laments, “all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart” (Jeremiah 9:27)....This is not to say that exclusion from the covenant community was impossible, or that Gentiles could not be grafted in. Unfaithful Israelites could be killed or banished from the land of Israel for a variety of sins. Similarly, non-Israelites sojourning among the people could enter into the covenant community, partaking of the nation’s laws and ordinances, eating the Passover meal, etc.—and in such cases they and their offspring were circumcised (e.g., Exod 12:48). Thus, it is not exactly right to say the offspring of Abraham simpliciter received circumcision—it was the nation that this offspring comprised, into which people enter, and from which people could be excluded. But excommunication or extermination from Israel occurred in response to specific and high-handed acts of rebellion like witchcraft, sorcery, blasphemy, particularly egregious forms of idolatry, etc. (e.g., Lev 20:27, 24:16, Deut. 17:2–5). It is unwarranted to infer the necessity of personal faith simply because someone has avoided the specific sins for which one will be stoned or banished. Membership in the nation of Israel had cultural, national, economic, and social dimensions, and huge numbers of Israelites remained Israelites without any evidence of personal faith in the God of Israel (think how many wicked kings throughout Samuel–Kings, for example, remained kings over God’s people despite their rejection of God’s laws).Thus, the conditions of excommunication introduced by the Mosaic law hundreds of years after the institution of circumcision did not redefine the Abrahamic covenant as “those who believe and their children,” as would be necessary to establish continuity with contemporary paedobaptist practice. Rather, God’s people were a national and inter-generational body, in line with Genesis 17:9–15; this was the entity from which one was excommunicated, or into which one was grafted. “Stone the sorcerer among you” is a far cry from “examine the credibility of their profession.” With regard to membership and excommunication among the people of God in the old and new covenants, we must say as we have said with circumcision and baptism: similar but not identical."
The key assertion made by Ortlund which I want to focus on is his claim that "excommunication or extermination from Israel occurred in response to specific and high-handed acts of rebellion like witchcraft, sorcery, blasphemy, particularly egregious forms of idolatry, etc. (e.g., Lev 20:27, 24:16, Deut. 17:2–5). It is unwarranted to infer the necessity of personal faith simply because someone has avoided the specific sins for which one will be stoned or banished."
Granted, excommunication for some sins (such as sexual immorality [Lev. 18], or necromancy [Lev. 20:27]) would not necessarily prove in and of itself the necessity of personal faith for inclusion in the substance of the covenant community. But, what about the texts which speak of excommunication for worshipping other gods? If that is not an act of "faithlessness", I don't know what is.
Faithful Non-Israelites in the Covenant
Another piece of evidence which shows that faithfulness and obedience was a key aspect of the Old Covenant is the presence of non-Israelites within that covenant, undoubtedly being Gentiles who worshipped the true God of Israel. We see an example of this in how the liturgy of the Passover is described:
"48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you." (Exodus 12:48-49)
Notice that even for the faithful non-Israelite, all of his children are considered members of the covenant ("let all his males be circumcised").
Another point to note within all of this is that the argument for paedobaptism on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant is not based on Israel's history altogether (a ton of which is failures and apostasy from God), but rather on the design of that covenant as it was instituted in Genesis 17.
Other Objections
Gavin also brings up Joshua 5 as an argument:
"It is difficult to imagine, for example, the parents in Israel being lined up at Gilgal in Joshua 5:2–8 to be examined concerning whether they professed faith, in order to determine whether their children were eligible for circumcision. No, Joshua 5:8 records that the entire nation was circumcised because—as specified by Genesis 17—circumcision was for the entire nation, not just for believers and their children within the nation"
However, in this context, any Israelite could have declined to be circumcised and then left Israel (Genesis 17:14). Not only that, the act of circumcision is physically painful. Thus, it would seem reasonable to assume that a willingness to undergo circumcision would imply at least some form of a profession of faith and loyalty in the party who is being circumcised.
Dr. Ortlund also asks for evidence for a "believers and their children" ecclesiology within Scripture. While Acts 2:38-39 is the text that would immediately jump to mind for most Presbyterians, I would also point out that the OT carries a form of this ecclesiology as well:
"Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children" (Psalm 90:16)
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