Reformed Baptist and Reformed paedobaptist alike know the importance of the Abrahamic covenant and its continuity, at least in some sense, with the new covenant. And everyone agreed that children, as members of the covenant community under the Abrahamic administration, received the covenant sign. If they were still in the covenant, or at least some type of covenant, how could I neglect giving them the sign?

No study on the Reformed paedobaptist position on baptism is complete without looking into Romans 4:11–12 and Colossians 2:11–12. Every book to which I turned trumpeted these scriptures as if these were the proof texts to demonstrate the viability of infant baptism. All of our favorite theologians from Augustine to Luther and Bavinck to Berkhof have something to say about these passages. Although they may have approached them differently, they made connections similar to what article 34 of the Belgic Confession states:

We believe our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as little children were circumcised in Israel on the basis of the same promises made to our children. And truly, Christ has shed his blood no less for washing the little children of believers than he did for adults.

As I considered these things, I found myself asking, “Was there that much continuity between the Old Testament sign of circumcision and Christian baptism?” I also wondered if I was required to give the new covenant sign of baptism to my children simply because Abraham circumcised his male children in the Old Testament? John Calvin believed so (Institutes, 4.16.11) along with a host of other Reformed theologians.

In his book, Infant Baptism and the Silence of the New Testament, Bryan Holstrom, under the framework of Colossians 2:11–12, asked the question,

But if baptism is the sign of the new covenant (as all agree that it is), and circumcision no longer has any religious significance, is it necessarily valid to say that baptism is the New Testament replacement for circumcision?” (37-38).

That seemed like a strong statement. I knew there were similarities between the two signs, but, in my estimation, an exegetical study of Colossians 2:11–12 did not suggest that Paul was explicitly, or implicitly, stating that baptism replaced circumcision in administration, which is what Holstrom believed. How could it? Only males received the sign in the Old Testament. But if I were to make this claim, I really had to buckle down because some theological heavyweights were not in my corner—Bryan Chapell, Robert Booth, Meredith Kline, Joel Beeke, R. C. Sproul, Michael Horton, John Murray, Pierre-Charles Marcel, et. al.

Though I was standing against giants, I was unfazed. I could not believe something simply because those smarter than me thought otherwise. But I must admit, I definitely found comfort in knowing that I was not alone in my baptism convictions and interpretation of Colossians 2:11–12. Both Fred Malone and W. Gary Crampton, fomer paedobaptists, maintained my position.

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