Genesis 17

Covenant Sign

God's grace, as we have seen, extended to Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. Abram, thinking he could run ahead of God and do God's work for him, arranged tor the birth of a son, through whom the covenant promises would be fulfilled. This led to strife in Abram's home, and it led to loss, as Ishmael was left to wander in the desert. Abram was rebuked. He ought to have waited on God instead of playing God. The promises would come true. God would honour his commitment to provide a godly seed for himself.

The great grace of the covenant God shines through in chapter 17. The covenant is renewed with Abram, who is reminded that he will become the father of many nations. In spite of all that has occurred in his household, God's covenant grace will still be Abram's portion. This is the blessing that belong to all who love God. In spite of sin, there is grace. More than sin, there is grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin.

God's covenant mercy is shown to Abram in two ways. First, there is the change in his own name. He is to be called ABRAHAM, father of many peoples. When God changes a man's name, he does it for a reason. And the reason here was that Abraham would carry around with him in his very name a constant reminder of the nature of the covenant bond, through which many people will spring from Abraham as the father of the faithful. We, who walk by faith, God reckons among the children of the Abraham, on whom the blessing of the covenant has come by Christ.

But the covenant is also to be written into the flesh of Abraham's descendants, through the ritual of circumcision. Through the cutting off of skin, in a ritual that involved pain and bloodshed, Abraham was privileged to write the covenant into the very flesh of his children. They carried a visible sign of an invisible bond, a mark in their flesh that reminded them of the sovereign grace and covenant promise of God.

Paedobaptists - those who believe in infant baptism - appeal to the unity of the Bible and the unity of the covenant grace as the great warrant for baptism of infants. To be sure, this is an issue that divides churches, and that divides people in different churches. But the argument for infant baptism goes back to the circumcision rite of the Old Testament. Colossians 2:11-12 specifically links the two; in the transitional nature of the Testaments, we believe that the bloody, painful, rite of circumcision has given way to the bloodless, painless sacrament of baptism as the covenant sign and seal for our infants.

Circumcision Was a Sign

Baptism is a sign, just as circumcision was. Of what? Of the covenant promise of God. Signs are invaluable things. They warn us, and direct us. They tell us where to go and they help us get where we want to go. We use signs every day of our lives.

Baptism is a sign. It points us away from ourselves to Jesus Christ, away from man to God, away from our good works to Christ's great work of salvation, and reminds us that there is salvation nowhere but in Him.

Many people have abused the doctrine of infant baptism, turning it into a doctrine of infant salvation, of baptismal regeneration. For that reason many reject infant baptism. But there is a difference between a doctrine that is truly false and a true doctrine used falsely. The fact that some abuse infant baptism is no reason to reject it. We ought to see that it spells out for us what circumcision spelt out for Abraham - "this is my covenant". In it, God was directing the minds of his people to the grace that alone saves.

Circumcision Was a Seal

Along with the sign, circumcision brought obligation and demand. The God who said 'this is my covenant' also said ' you shall keep my covenant'. It was not circumcision that brought the blessing, but obedience. It was ever thus. It is the same still. Blessing is not ours because of Christian baptism, but through obedience to the Word of God and the covenant of God of which baptism is a sign.

The rite reminds us that disobedience in the light of covenant privilege seals our doom; but obedience seals our full enjoyment of the covenant blessing. We can know none of these blessings automatically, but only as we walk by faith in the promises of God.

Circumcision Was a Privilege

God's covenant written in the flesh of our children! What a blessing for Abraham's household. Let us not devalue the sacrament of infant baptism by regarding is simply as a church ritual or rite. It places our children in a unique relationship to God, in a position of privilege. It places parents in a position of responsibility, to raise their children for the Lord. We seek for our children what Abraham sought for his, what Baptists seek for theirs and what all godly parents wish for their offspring - that they will come to embrace the Christ of the covenant for themselves. If we seek that covenant blessing for our children, why should we deny them the covenant sign?