When do CHILDREN obey "repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins....".
a....8 days old?
B....terrible 2's?
C....adolescent to adulthood?
You continue to misunderstand Peter (in at least a couple of different ways) in Acts 2:38. The water baptism of men (from John the Baptist to today) is not about repentance, per se... Repentance is not a prerequisite to be baptized. Baptism ~ just as circumcision was in the Old Testament ~ is sign and seal of the promise of God in Christ Jesus, and is not to be denied of people of any age, even infants. More on that in a moment, but first, regarding repentance, we have to remember that true repentance from sin is a work of the Holy Spirit within each one of us; it is a spiritual gift, given to us by God and worked in us by His Spirit.
In his letter to the Romans, addressing the depravity of man, a doctrine for which the apostle had a very high regard, Paul writes,
“Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (
Romans 2:4). Paul’s point is a simple one, that repentance is a gift of God, an act that the Holy Spirit works in us resulting in an act that flows out of us. Although it is our act, it does not originate from within us. In fact, in our naturally stubborn, rebellious hearts the whole notion of repentance is foreign. Just as our righteousness is a foreign, or “alien,” righteousness from Christ, so is our repentance. It is granted to us by God Himself. We would not even conceive of such a thing left to ourselves. By His grace, God grants repentance to His adopted children whom He patiently disciplines:
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (
Revelation 3:19). For even when our minds grow weary and our hearts doubt the promises of God, He remains faithful to His promises and patient toward His people in the church
“not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (
2 Peter 3:9).
Circumcision itself was not a new practice that God introduced only to Abraham in Genesis 17. In fact, circumcision was an already-existing practice broadly used in the Ancient Near East (e.g. Egypt and Mesopotamia) sometimes as a puberty or prenuptial rite. It existed as early as 3,000 B.C., possibly originating in Mesopotamia, the region from which Abraham came. In Egypt, it was apparently reserved only for high caste individuals. While similar in general respects, these extra-biblical practices differed significantly from the prescribed practice of the Old Testament established in Genesis 17 and regulated through the Mosaic Law. Interestingly, while Egyptian circumcision seemingly involved only a dorsal incision ~ that is, a cutting of the foreskin along the top ~ Hebrew circumcision called for the complete removal of the foreskin. While the Egyptian version was administered strictly to high caste males as a puberty rite, Abrahamic circumcision was administered to all males from near infancy, including even proselytes. This is all very interesting, but the point is that circumcision, regardless of how it was done or what people group used it, was a
common practice performed to
set the people within the community apart from all other groups...
to distinguish all within the community from every other community, from everyone else...
to mark a person as belonging to one community and not to any other. So essentially, in prescribing the practice of circumcision to Abraham in Genesis 17 (and providing very specific directions to Abraham regarding how it was to be done), He was saying, "This is how you're going to
visibly set my people apart from every other group of folks and everyone else out there, and here's how I want it done. This is the sign and seal of the promise.
Having said that, although circumcision was administered according to the command of God,
it did not signify only blessedness; it also signified potential curse or blessing. And those who possessed the sign of the covenant while remaining covenant breakers would eventually be
cut off from God’s people. In instances where circumcision did not signify the actual removal of sin from an individual because they did not act on the promises by faith, circumcision foreshadowed their removal from the presence of God and the people of God. Having developed the meaning of circumcision in its Old Testament context, we may now consider its correspondence to its New Testament analog baptism. This comparison has its legitimacy in the fact that these two great signs were the
signifiers of membership in the covenant community. One could not belong to the covenant people without the sign in their respective redemptive epochs. But Paul makes all the more clear the legitimacy of this comparison when he credits baptism as the means of the believer’s
ultimate circumcision.
"In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead." (Colossians 2:11-12)
How is it that circumcision is fulfilled by baptism? Often it is asked, “Where in the New Testament are we commanded to baptize children?” While there are many ways of answering this question, it is the wrong question.
We must see the fundamental continuity between the Old and New Testaments such that the covenant of grace as promised in Genesis 3 is administered through the various epochs of redemptive history until the fullness of time in the coming of Jesus Christ. The New Testament indicates that
the sign of baptism functions in the same way as circumcision ~ a sign of potential accursedness or blessedness dependent upon whether God’s promises are met at some point with faith in its recipient. In the case of infants, it is a calling by the parents on the promise of God to work through them by His Spirit at the appointed time ~
whenever that may be, at whatever age ~ to work repentance and faith, and thus salvation, in the child. This was true of circumcision in the Old Testament, and it is true of water baptism, which has replaced circumcision in the New Testament. Yes, we are to read the Old in the light of the New, but the New is completion of the Old Testament story.
Grace and peace to all.