BELIEVER BAPTISM: SACRAMENT OF THE NEW COVENANT

Annual Meeting of the ETS, November 19, 2014

Brandon C. JonesAdjunct Instructor, Liberty University Online

bnmjones@gmail.com

I. INTRODUCTION

There is no dispute among most Christians that Jesus has

commanded his people to observe baptism and the Lord’s Supper,

and his command alone is sufficient reason for obedience.

However, once someone considers the meaning and carrying out of

baptism and the Lord’s Supper, disputed questions and answers

immediately arise. Questions such as, Why has Jesus commanded

these things and not others for his people to follow? Must they

remain physical acts, or can we obey Jesus by spiritually

observing them? Does God do anything through them? Do we

experience anything special through them that we experience

nowhere else? What do we call them: ordinances, sacraments, or

both? What is the difference between those two terms, anyways?

Must baptism include immersion into water, or pouring, or

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sprinkling? Also, can we use a baptistery? Must the Lord’s Supper

include unleavened bread and alcoholic wine? Can the bread be

gluten free? How often should we serve it? When can children

start observing it with us? When should we baptize disciples?

Must our children be a certain age before we baptize them? How

often can we baptize people, especially if they think the first

one was no good? Can we baptize them right after they profess

faith, or should they wait some? Who is allowed to baptize? And

so on. I am sure if I asked around, we could easily come up with

dozens more questions about baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and

Jesus himself would have little to contribute, at least if we use

the canonical Gospels as our guide.

In order to come up with any helpful answers to these

questions, we must look past the largely undisputed fact that

Jesus ordained baptism and the Lord’s Supper and examine their

respective meanings within the context of God’s revelation.

Although there are numerous helpful ways for Baptists to look at

the meaning of believer baptism,1 one approach that was popular 1 A helpful exegetical study remains G. R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the

New Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962. A helpful group of essays that look at the theological relationship between baptism, God, and the world is Paul Fiddes, ed., Reflections on the Water: Understanding God and the World through the Baptism of Believers, Oxford: Regent’s Park College; Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys,

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long ago, but largely forgotten today, is the relationship

between baptism and covenant theology.2 In what follows I will

argue that Scripture presents believer baptism as the sacrament

that confirms one’s initiation into God’s New Covenant people.

The first section of the paper will look at the general role of

sacraments in biblical covenants. The second section will

describe the contours of the New Covenant. The third section will

then demonstrate how the meaning of believer baptism stems from

its context within the New Covenant.

II. SACRAMENTS AND COVENANTS IN SCRIPTURE

The word sacrament has long been associated with taking an

oath regarding something sacred, and signifying the reality of

that oath with a physical act. This is one reason people in the

Christian tradition refer to sacraments as visible words, since

they symbolize a promise. When it comes to acts that symbolize

1996. Two helpful collections of essays that mix biblical and theological scholarship on believer baptism are A. Gilmore, ed., Christian Baptism: A Fresh Attempt to Understand the Rite in Terms of Scripture, History, and Theology, London: Lutterworth,1959; and Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible and Theology, Ray E. Clendenen, ed., Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

2 I discuss the details of the rise and fall of Baptist covenant theology in Chapters 5 and 6 of my book, Waters of Promise: Finding Meaning in Believer Baptism (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 73-114.

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God’s gracious promises, most people think of the word sacrament

to refer to something that God has given to his people as a means

of his grace.

God’s covenants are gracious promises, so sacraments and

covenants go together. Many covenants in Scripture include sacred

oaths, visible sacraments, or both. Three examples of biblical

covenants with both oaths and sacraments are God’s covenants with

Noah, Abraham, and the nation of Israel. The Noahic covenant has

God himself taking on an oath, swearing never again to flood the

entire earth and using the rainbow as a sacrament (Gen 9:8-17).

There is some dispute about how many covenants God made with

Abraham, but no matter how theologians dissect the material

Genesis chapter 12, 15, and 17 include many oaths and at least

one sacrament. In Genesis 12 God tells Abram to leave home to be

made into a great nation. God makes an oath, but there is no

sacrament. A few chapters later in Genesis 15 God makes an oath

that Abram and Sarai will bear a son whose offspring will become

a great nation of people, using the countless stars in the night

sky as a sort of sacrament of the promise. God then reiterates a

separate oath to give Abram the Promised Land and to confirm that

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promise to Abram God himself seals the covenant with an animal

sacrifice. In Genesis 17 God makes another covenant and oath with

Abram, changing his name to Abraham, and reiterating an

everlasting covenant with Abraham and his descendants that he

will be their God and he will give them the Promised Land. While

God’s oath is similar in chapter 17 to what he has already said

in previous chapters, there is something new this time. In vv. 9-

14 God commands that Abraham and his male descendants signify

they will keep the covenant by undergoing circumcision. This is a

physical sacrament, like the rainbow, and it signifies an oath

taken both by God and by his people to keep the covenant. By the

end of Genesis chapter 17 every male in Abraham’s family,

including Abraham himself, was circumcised.

After God fulfills some of the promises made to Abraham by

granting him numerous descendants, a famine drew them out of the

Promised Land and into Egypt. From there he takes an oath to be

their God by freeing them from slavery in Egypt and placing them

in the land promised to their forefathers. Before they enter that

land, he reveals to them a law for them to obey, including

numerous moral, legal, and ceremonial stipulations, some of which

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could be interpreted as signs of the covenant, such as the

Passover, Day of Atonement, and Firstfruits offerings. According

to New Testament authors, these signs God gave to Abraham’s

physical descendants, Israel, pointed toward God’s own

fulfillment of them in Christ.

God’s covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Israel all include

oaths and sacraments, but some covenants include just oaths. For

example, God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel Chapter 7 has God

taking an oath that he will never withdraw his love from David’s

descendants and will establish David’s throne forever, but there

is no accompanying sacrament of the covenant.

Other covenants are just mentioned in passing in Scripture,

so it is difficult to know more details about them, including

whether they involved oaths or sacraments. It is possible that

these are informal covenants, so there should be no expectation

of oaths or sacraments to accompany them. Among these covenants

are the covenant with stones and beasts in Job 5:23 and the

covenant with death in Isaiah 28:18.3

3 Pre-modern commentators, especially under the influence of the Latin Vulgate translation, included Hosea 6:7 as another covenant with no accompanying oath made between God and Adam. Richard A. Muller has a helpful discussion of the exegesis of this verse both in medieval, Reformed, and Post-Reformed eras in PRRD 2:436-41.

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Given the presence of covenants in Scripture that do not

include accompanying sacraments or even oaths, God does not need

to reveal oaths and sacraments to us for every covenant, or they

do not have to accompany every covenant in the first place. That

is not an interesting conclusion, but turning it on its head

raises the question, Does God reveal in Scripture oaths and

sacraments without clearly revealing their underlying covenants?

The beginning and end of our Bibles could hold an answer.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of

life signify different aspects of humanity’s relationship with

God. Genesis 2:9 introduces both trees, saying that God planted

in them in the middle of the Garden of Eden. A few verses later

God takes the man he made, Adam, and put him in the garden to

take care of it and work it. He then commands the man by saying,

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must

not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when

Some modern commentators also support this reading of Hosea 6:7 as does Thomas Edward McComiskey, “Hosea,” in The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary, Ed. Idem (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2009), 95. Other modern commentators argue that Hosea was referring to God’s covenant with Israel and describing “Adam” as a geographical location. For example the translators of the NET Bible, 1st Ed (n.p.: Biblical Studies Press, 2005), 1680. God also discusses a “covenant of peace” with different people in Numbers 25:12, Isaiah54:10, and Ezekiel 34:25.

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you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen 2:16-17).4 While

this command is not obviously an oath, it is clear that the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil and its fruit signifies the

man’s relationship with God, namely whether it will be marked by

obedience or disobedience. At this time God says nothing in

particular about the tree of life, so it is assumed that the man

could eat freely from it and by doing so signify his relationship

with God.

In Genesis 3 a serpent convinces the woman to eat the fruit

of the tree and she convinces the man to eat it too. In response

God carries out the consequences of his command by cursing the

serpent, the earth, the woman, and the man (Gen 3:1-19). After

doling out these curses, Genesis 3:22-24 has God saying, “‘the

man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must

not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree

of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him

from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been

taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of

the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and

4 All direct Scripture quotations are from the NIV.

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forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” The man’s eating of

the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought

spiritual death, and this passage implies that eating of the

fruit of the tree of life under sin’s curse would have made such

death permanent.

Even after the curse, the tree of life continued to signify

mankind’s relationship with God or else there would be no need

for God to protect it. Its fruit signified something about God’s

relationship with humans, which was not destroyed by Adam’s

rebellion. Rather, his rebellion brought about an opportunity for

the relationship between God and humanity to be redeemed and

consummated. Thus, God defends the tree of life; he does not

destroy it. The tree of life’s enduring presence points toward a

future when sin’s curse is lifted and humans can again freely eat

from it with no fear of the eternal life it brings. This is

precisely what John reveals toward the conclusion of the book of

Revelation. John sees the New Jerusalem come down onto a renewed

earth, and in Chapter 22, verses 1-3a he writes, “Then the angel

showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of

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the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the

tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit

every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of

the nations. No longer will there be any curse.” Even in God’s

kingdom the tree of life will continue to signify the

relationship between God and his people.

As with baptism, God clearly commanded the first humans to

refrain from eating one tree in the garden, which was reason

enough for their obedience. But once we go beyond the fact that

God commanded this behavior and examine its meaning, the trees

fit the description of sacraments. Augustine, commenting on the

superiority of the resurrection body even to the bodies of Adam

and Eve before sin’s curse, says that their eating the fruits of

all sorts of trees nourished them, but the fruit of the tree of

life was “their sacrament.”5 He was not alone in this claim among

pre-modern Christians as they saw how trees pointed toward God’s

promises and as such were means of grace.6 Eating the fruit of

the tree of life and the refusal to eat of the fruit of the tree

5 Augustine, City of God, XIII.20.6 For example, John Calvin says about the Tree of Life, “for we know it

to be by no means unusual that God should give to us the attestation of his grace by external symbols” (Commentary on Genesis 2:9).

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of the knowledge of good and evil signified the first humans’

relationship with God. As a sacrament, the physical act of eating

was also like an oath in which the outward physical act stemmed

from the inward state of one’s heart. As the author states in

Genesis 3:6 before Eve took a bite of the tree’s fruit she “saw

that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the

eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” There was no clear

covenant revealed to Adam and Eve, at least in the biblical

accounts, but looking at what God reveals about both trees, God

treated them like sacraments. There were also obligations,

blessings, and curses, surrounding the trees, which are present

in other covenants, and, as stated above, sacraments and

covenants go together. It is not crystal clear that the trees in

the middle of the garden were sacraments of an underlying

covenant. But clearly the trees had to do with the blessings of

eternal life, the curses of sin, and, according to Romans 5 and 1

Corinthians 15, Adam’s eating or not eating of their fruits

affected all of humanity. All of that adds up to some covenant

underlying these sacramental trees.7

7 There was fluid terminology for naming this covenant for many years, but it is most commonly called “the covenant of works.” There is much

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The biblical accounts of God’s covenants include some with

oaths, sacraments, blessings, curses, and/or obligations, and

others with none of those things revealed. This section has

argued that just as there are covenants without clear sacraments

accompanying them, there are also sacraments without any clear

covenants underlying them, as with the trees in the middle of the

Garden of Eden. Building on what we have discussed so far about

these trees, the next section will move past the first Adam and

look to the one Paul calls the second Adam, Jesus Christ. His

person and work redeems humanity from the curse of sin in what is

known as the New Covenant.

III. THE CONTOURS OF THE NEW COVENANT

As indicated by its name, the New Covenant builds on other

covenants God made with his people. In Jeremiah 31:31-34 God

says:

scholarship about the development of this covenant, especially in the Reformedtradition. A helpful piece on the concept of this covenant’s origins in exegesis of biblical passages concerning salvation and original sin is RichardA. Muller, “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law in Seventeenth-century Reformed Orthodoxy: A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel,” Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 75-100. I discuss two Seventeenth-century Baptist approaches to this covenant within thecontext of covenant theology in Chapter 5 of my book, Waters of Promise, 81-99.

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The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make anew covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with theirancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘This is the covenant Iwill make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they willbe my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

These words contain an oath made by God himself, but there is no

clear sacrament to accompany it. However, a backdrop to these

comments is a previous covenant God made with his people in which

they were to be his people by obeying his laws as signified by

undergoing circumcision. Keeping the older covenant in mind

God’s oath reveals several contrasts between the two. Under the

older covenant God’s people had to learn his law in their minds

and strive to keep it in their hearts. They would also have to

teach one another to know the Lord. These comments reveal that

individual members of families who practiced the older covenant’s

sacrament of circumcision still needed to know the Lord. Those

who never knew the Lord, despite their family’s circumcision,

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would be held accountable for their wickedness and sins. Some of

God’s people under the older covenant knew the Lord, but not all

of God’s people did. What makes the new covenant different from

the older covenant, according to Jeremiah 31, is that God will be

the God of a people who all know him inwardly: their blessings

will include wickedness that will be forgiven and sins that will

not be remembered.

Some New Testament authors refer to Jeremiah’s account of

the New Covenant while discussing the person and work of Jesus

Christ, especially within the context of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus

mentions the new covenant in Luke’s account of the Last Supper.

Luke writes, “after the supper he [Jesus] took the cup, saying,

‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out

for you’” (22:20).8 While Jeremiah’s prophecy included no

sacraments, Jesus transforms part of the Passover meal into

sacraments of the New Covenant that point to his body and blood

being given to many for the forgiveness of sins. He commands his

followers to eat and drink in remembrance of him, for as often as8 The textual tradition shows some dispute about what the original

version of Luke 22:17-20 included. However, Matthew 26:28 clearly mentions a covenant and in some texts even a “new covenant” as Jesus refers to the cup athis supper. Likewise, Paul’s version of the Last Supper also has Jesus referring to the cup as “the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor 11:25).

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they do it they proclaim his death until he comes again. Jesus

does not say one way or the other that this eating and drinking

signifies that someone is now part of the New Covenant, but given

that it is to be a repeated sacrament it is not likely a

sacrament of initiation into the covenant itself.

Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians gives

insight into what the Lord’s Supper signifies, and it is not

initiation into the covenant. Paul discusses the Lord’s Supper in

1 Corinthians 11 and says believers ought to examine themselves

before taking the meal, “For those who eat and drink without

discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on

themselves” (1 Cor 11:29). Paul’s comments read like a curse, but

Paul qualifies what he mans by God’s judgment a few verses later

when he says that God is disciplining his people in the supper,

so “we will not be finally condemned with the world” (1 Cor

11:32b). Paul’s reasoning here is that taking the sacrament of

the New Covenant without considering that to which the sacrament

signifies, namely the unity of God’s New Covenant people in

Christ, is dangerous. Paul says in the previous chapter in 1

Corinthians that participation in the Lord’s Supper is none other

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than participation in Christ’s body and blood, “because there is

one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share one

loaf” (1 Cor 10:17). Piecing together what Paul says both in

Chapters 10 and 11, leads to the conclusion that the Lord’s

Supper signifies the underlying reality that members of God’s New

Covenant people are united in Christ and ought to remain united

in Christ. Paul’s words assume that all those who take of the

Lord’s Supper already belong to God’s New Covenant community, so

the supper does not signify anyone’s initiation into the

community itself. It is a sacrament of continued faithfulness,

not of coming to faith in the first place.

Some New Testament authors speak of the New Covenant outside

the context of the Lord’s Supper. Paul mentions the New Covenant

in 2 Corinthians 3:6 when he refers to himself and his companions

as “ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the

Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” He goes

on in the remainder of Chapter 3 to say how the New Covenant

surpasses the older one. The older one, although glorious, was

temporary and resulted in condemnation, but the New Covenant is

even more glorious by being full of Spirit, freedom, and

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permanency. The New Testament book that mentions the New Covenant

most often is Hebrews. A chief argument of the entire book is the

supremacy of Christ over the Old Testament law, so naturally a

comparison is made between the older and New Covenants. Christ is

a superior Word to the Law. Christ is a superior Priest to

Israel’s High Priest. Christ’s blood is a superior sacrifice to

the blood of animals. Thus, Christ’s New Covenant is a superior

covenant to the older Covenant. Much of Hebrews Chapter 8 quotes

Jeremiah 31:31-34, where there is no discussion of a sacrament of

the covenant. Like what Paul says in 2 Corinthians, the author of

Hebrews focuses on the contrast between the substance of each

covenant rather than their respective sacraments.

This section has identified certain contours of the New

Covenant in contrast to an older one. The New Covenant has Christ

as its mediator and its staying power is forever, unlike the

older covenant. The people of the New Covenant all know God

inwardly and partake regularly of the Lord’s Supper as a

sacrament of God’s continued faithfulness to them and likewise

their continued faithfulness to him, which is why Paul warns

against partaking of it unworthily. None of the New Testament

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passages that mention the New Covenant discusses baptism

directly, so one must infer that baptism is the sacrament of

initiation into the New Covenant on other grounds. The case made

in this paper will build on the relationship of sacraments and

covenants in general and certain contours of the New Covenant in

particular, namely what Jeremiah says about the makeup of its

people.

IV. BAPTISM AND THE NEW COVENANT

Jesus commanded that his disciples go and make disciples,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Luke’s accounts of the early church in Acts track how the

Apostles and other early church leaders preached the gospel

message, mentioning baptism as a proper response for anyone who

inquires positively about what to do once they believe the gospel

message (e.g. Acts 2:37-41; 8:12; 8:36-39; 9:17-19; 10:44-48;

16:14-15; 16:30-34; 18:8; 19:1-7). In Luke’s accounts baptism

plays a normative role in the greater process of being initiated

into the Christian faith as a believer.

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Other than the phrase “in the name of,” there is not much

detail in the Gospels or Acts about the meaning of baptism. In

Acts 19 Paul encounters people in Ephesus who had not heard of

the Holy Spirit, which prompts Paul to ask what baptism they

received. Paul discovers that the people in Ephesus only received

the baptism of John. Paul goes on to say that John’s preaching

and baptism encouraged people to believe in the one who came

after him, namely Christ. In response, they received Christ’s

baptism, presumably because they believed in Christ, just as

John’s preaching encouraged them to do.

While Luke does not include details about the meaning of

Christian baptism in Acts, his descriptions of baptism give

several insights, and, as with anything in Acts, it is arguable

how normative Luke’s descriptions ought to be for churches going

forward.9 That being said, the account Luke gives us in Acts

reveals that baptism can only be received from God’s people, the

church. One cannot baptize herself. One receives baptism only

after hearing the gospel message, not before. Not only is baptism

an expected response to the gospel message, many times it is the

9 For a more thorough analysis that draws from the Gospel of Luke, see Robert H. Stein, “Baptism in Luke-Acts,” in Believer’s Baptism, 35-66.

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only response Luke mentions in Acts. Although people who received

the baptism of John were baptized anew in the name of Jesus, no

one in Acts receives multiple baptisms in the name of Jesus.

Unlike the Lord’s Supper, commands and descriptions of Christian

baptism in Acts lack any hint of repetition. They also lack any

explicit link to the New Covenant. Thus, merely looking at the

command to baptize and descriptions of people receiving baptism

in Acts are not sufficient to connect baptism to the New

Covenant. For a connection we must turn to the letters in the New

Testament that discuss the meaning of baptism while also bringing

up covenantal themes.

In some New Testament passages authors describe baptism as a

shorthand way of referring to the entire process of Christian

initiation: a process that includes hearing the gospel message

and responding to it by faith, confession, repentance, and

baptism.10 Paul says in Romans 6:3, “or don’t you know that all

of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his

10 One example is in Romans chapter 6, where Douglas J. Moo argues, “Baptism, rather, functions as shorthand for the conversion experience as a whole” in his The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 355. For a helpful account of major baptismal texts in the New Testament letters, see Thomas R. Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles: An Initiation Rite for Believers,” in Believer’s Baptism, 67-96.

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death?” Peter says in 1 Peter 3:21, “and this water symbolizes

baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the

body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.” There are

also passages in which coming to believe or having faith

describes the process of Christian initiation (e.g. Eph 2:8-9),

but baptism serves as a fitting description because of its

confirming role as seen above in Acts. Some New Testament

passages include both faith and baptism, and in these passages

faith precedes baptism. Consider what Paul says in Galatians

3:26-27, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through

faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed

yourselves with Christ.” Baptism confirms one’s faith, or as

Peter says it is a pledge of one’s faith in God and given Paul’s

words here it is also a pledge of God to clothe his children with

Christ. According to these passages, baptism signifies

confirmation of the presence of faith where there was no faith

before and inclusion into God’s people where there was not

inclusion before. Some foundation must support baptism’s

confirming role.

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Paul recognizes the foundation of God’s covenant in two

passages that discuss baptism. In the first passage, after Paul

says God’s children by faith clothe themselves with Christ in

baptism, he reminds these children a few verses later that “if

you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs

according to the promise.” Talk of Abraham’s seed, heirs, and

promises, is well within the realm of God’s covenants, and Paul

goes deeper into that realm by linking circumcision to baptism in

the second passage. In Colossians 2:11-12 Paul writes, “In him

[Christ] you were also circumcised with a circumcision not

performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was

put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried

with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him

through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the

dead.” Paul’s words point out that under the older covenant

physical circumcision signified a hopeful underlying spiritual

circumcision in the hearts of God’s people. But as Jeremiah’s

prophecy points out, under the older covenant only some of

Abraham’s physical descendants knew God inwardly. The comparison

here is that God’s New Covenant people in Christ experience the

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same spiritual circumcision that his older covenant people did,

namely that to which physical circumcision signified—the cutting

off of the flesh. The contrast is that whether or not someone is

ethnically a Jew or a Greek, they undergo Christ’s spiritual

circumcision by faith confirmed in baptism. The New Covenant not

only has a new mediator, new priest, and a new kind of people,

but also a new sacrament of initiation—baptism.

Paul’s words reveal continuities between circumcision and

baptism.11 Both sacraments occur once in one’s lifetime and

toward the beginning of that life. Under the older covenant

physical generation prompted circumcision. Under the New Covenant

spiritual regeneration prompts baptism. Both sacraments signify

God’s oath. Under the older covenant God took an oath to be the

God of the nation of Israel, Abraham’s descendants for

generations, some of whom knew him inwardly. They were to

acknowledge his oath by circumcising their boys and converts.

Under the New Covenant God took an oath to adopt children into

11 There is much literature, especially in the Reformed tradition, aboutthe continuities between circumcision and baptism. Two helpful articles that discuss these continuities from a Baptist perspective are Stephen J. Wellum, “Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants,” in Believer’s Baptism, 153-60; and Duane A. Garrett, “Meredith Kline on Suzerainty, Circumcision, and Baptism,” in Believer’s Baptism, 257-84.

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his family by their faith in Christ and clothe them with Christ.

Christians are to acknowledge his oath by making disciples and

baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

teaching all things he commanded, and signifying their continued

unity and faith through the Lord’s Supper.

The discontinuities between circumcision and baptism stem

directly from the many differences between the older covenant and

the New Covenant. The older covenant commanded God’s people to

perform the sacrament of circumcision in hopes that each member

of each family among God’s people would come to know the Lord

inwardly, but not all of them did. The New Covenant commands

God’s people to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and encourage

people to respond to it by faith, confession, repentance, and

baptism. Only professed believers receive the sacrament of

baptism in good faith that all of God’s New Covenant people know

the Lord inwardly, having their sins forgiven in Christ.

It is reasonable to infer that the New Covenant underlies

baptism, considering the following things: Jesus’ command to

baptize new disciples, the description of baptism as an expected

response to the gospel message, the shorthand use of baptism to

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describe the entire process of Christian initiation, and the

theology of baptism’s meaning in the New Testament. Like eating

of the trees in the Garden of Eden, baptism is a sacrament of an

underlying covenant, even though not a single passage says so.

Given that the Lord’s Supper presumes its participants are

already members of God’s people under the New Covenant, baptism

is a one-time sacrament that confirms a believer’s initiation

into God’s people under the New Covenant.

V. SOME CONCLUSIONS

This paper has argued that Scripture presents believer

baptism as the sacrament that confirms one’s initiation into

God’s New Covenant people. The first section gave the general

role of sacraments in biblical covenants, noting that they often

go together, even though some sacraments seem to lack a clear

underlying covenant. The second section described the contours of

the New Covenant, identifying the makeup of its people and how

they differ from older covenants by having all their people know

the Lord inwardly. The third section demonstrated how the meaning

of believer baptism stems from its context within the New

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Covenant, given its role in the process of Christian initiation

and its ties to circumcision.

This paper drew primarily from Scripture to build an

inferential case about the meaning of baptism. Other research on

the matter should include a greater framework of covenant

theology within which one can look at bigger themes, such as

salvation, kingdom, and church. Studies are also needed that

address the practical questions mentioned earlier in which

baptism’s meaning and confirming role directly affect how it is

administered, taught, and practiced in local churches. Greater

depth would also be helpful by way of studies on how God the

Spirit uses sacraments as a means of grace to attune our whole

selves, including our bodies, to God’s presence and work

throughout the world.

One paper cannot grasp the fullness of God’s grace in

baptism. It remains a beautiful picture of one’s death, burial,

and resurrection in Christ, and its full meaning remains somewhat

mysterious as the origins of the word sacrament convey.

Nonetheless, Scripture has revealed key aspects of baptism’s

meaning that find their roots within God’s covenants with his

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people. It should not be enough to settle for its mere command.

Rather, believers should explore what God has revealed about it

and relish in it as a special means of grace.

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VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beasley-Murray, G. R. Baptism in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Translated by John King. Vol. 1. Reprint, Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2003.

Fiddes, Paul S., ed. Reflections on the Water: Understanding God and the World through the Baptism of Believers. Oxford: Regent’s Park College; Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1996.

Garrett, Duane A. “Meredith Kline on Suzerainty, Circumcision, and Baptism.” In Believer’s Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, 257-84. NAC Studies in Bible and Theology. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

Gilmore, A., ed. Christian Baptism: A Fresh Attempt to Understand the Rite in terms of Scripture, History, and Theology. London: Lutterworth, 1959.

Jones, Brandon C. Waters of Promise: Finding Meaning in Believer Baptism. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012.

McComiskey, Thomas Edward. “Hosea.” In The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary, 1-238. Edited by Thomas Edward McComiskey. Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2009.

Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentaryon the New Testament. Edited by Gordon D. Fee. Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1996.

Muller, Richard A. “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law in Seventeenth-century Reformed Orthodoxy: A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel.” Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 75-100.

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_____. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 2d ed., 4 vols. Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 1987-2003.

NET Bible. 1st ed. N.P.: Biblical Studies Press, 2005.

Schreiner, Thomas R. “Baptism in the Epistles: An Initiation Ritefor Believers.” In Believer’s Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, 67-96. NAC Studies in Bible and Theology. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Shawn D. Wright, eds. Believer’s Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ. NAC Studies in Bible and Theology. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

Stein, Robert H. “Baptism in Luke-Acts.” In Believer’s Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, 35-66. NAC Studies in Bible and Theology. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

Wellum, Stephen J. “Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants.” In Believer’s Baptism: Sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, 97-162. NAC Studies in Bible and Theology. Edited by E. Ray Clendenen. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2006.

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