I still wanted to know whether children were in the covenant. Romans 11:13–24 and Ephesians 2:11–22 seemed to suggest they were. Paul did not equivocate that the familial structure of the covenant had changed although gentiles were grafted into it. If that were true, then the covenant still included parent(s) and their children.

Are children in the covenant or not? Unfortunately, while Doug Van Dorn’s book, Waters of Creation: A Biblical-Theological Study of Baptism, helped in many areas, it did not help here (see footnote in Waters of Creation, 111). Although he beautifully expanded upon the work of Kline, Beale, Jones, and others, noting the fullness of baptism’s significance even as it’s found in the Old Testament, he refrained from answering that question. Perhaps it was beyond the scope of his work; nevertheless, it was a question that I needed answered.

Though I cannot say enough about Van Dorn’s work and the large influence it had (for example his statement that baptism is not our pledge or commitment to God but his pledge and commitment to us), as I continued to study, I began disagreeing with some of his conclusions. This, of course, is not the place to provide an exhaustive response to his work, but here are some thoughts that began to make me wonder.

It seemed that he too narrowly focused on the priestly lustrations found in the Mosaic Law (cf. Exod 29:4–5), which he believed were the antecedent to Christian baptism, to the exclusion of the other Old Testament baptisms (see Waters of Creation, 150). This was, of course, a necessary move if he wanted to exclude children from receiving the covenant sign especially considering two of the other OT baptisms included covenant children (see 1 Cor 10:1–2; 1 Pet 3:18–21). In fact, Peter tells us that the flood was an antitype (ἀντίτυπος—1 Pet. 3:21) of Christian baptism. I could not easily discard this, especially in light of Van Dorn’s adherence to typology (see Waters of Creation, 151). What is interesting about this baptism is that Noah’s entire household was baptized yet Noah was the only one whom found favor in God’s sight (Gen. 6:8). Were Noah’s children older during this baptism and therefore conscious of the event? Sure! But we also never read that they professed faith before baptism.

Be that as it may, I still wanted to know whether children were in the covenant. Romans 11:13–24 and Ephesians 2:11–22 seemed to suggest they were. Paul did not equivocate that the familial structure of the covenant had changed although gentiles were grafted into it. If that were true, then the covenant still included parent(s) and their children. This was merely a starting place. Since I desired to more fully answer this question, I needed to turn to the oft-utilized passage—Jeremiah 31:31–34. Every baptism debate to which I listened or every book I read highlighted this passage at some point.

Read More