Thirteen Differences Between Circumcision and Baptism, by Benjamin Keach

In his work defending credobaptism on the basis of Baptist covenant theology, Benjamin Keach notes 13 differences between circumcision and baptism. He admits, of course, that there are commonalities between the two ordinances. Nevertheless, these differences continue to stand. What I found so helpful is that the list collates what have been things I have thought of in a scattered manner in the past. I’m including it here so that, not only may it be a helpful reference for me (tucked away in a Word document on my computer), but it may also help others. You do not need to agree with every point, or with the exact way he words each point, to see the value of considering the differences he lists.

“3. And whereas you say, Baptism signifies the same things that Circumcision did: it is not true, as will appear to all understanding Men, if they consider these Particulars following, which are so many Disparities, viz.

(1.) Circumcision was a Shadow of Christ to come: Baptism is a Sign he is already come, was dead and buried.

(2.) Circumcision was a Sign of the Covenant made with Abraham and his natural Seed: Baptism is a Sign of the peculiar spiritual Priviledges made to Saints, as such, and no others.

(3.) Circumcision was a Domestick Action, i.e. to be done in the House: Baptism an Ecclesiastick, belonging to the Gospel-Church.

(4.) Circumcision was to be done by the Parents in that respect: Baptism is to be done only by Gospel-Ministers.

(5.) Circumcision was the cutting off the Fore-skin of the Flesh, which drew Blood: Baptism is to be done by dipping the whole Body into the Water without drawing of any Blood.

(6.) Circumcision belonged to Male Children only: Baptism belongs to Males and Females also.

(7.) Circumcision was to be done precisely on the eighth day: Baptism is not limited to any precise day.

(8.) Circumcision made a visible Impression on the Body, which the Party might perceive when he came to Age of Understanding: Baptism leaves no Impression on the Body.

(9.) Circumcision belonged to Abraham‘s House, to his Male Infants only, or such who were bought with his Money, and not the Male Infants of any other godly Men in his days, unless they join themselves to his Family. Baptism belongs to Believers in all Nations.

(10.) Circumcision bound those who came under that Rite, to keep the whole Law of Moses: Baptism signifies we are delivered from that Yoke of Bondage.

(11.) If Circumcision signified the same things, and consequently, particularly the sealing the Covenant of Grace; then those that were circumcised, needed not to be baptized, because sealed before with the same seal of that which signified the same thing: but Christ and all his Apostles, and many others who were circumcised, were nevertheless baptized.

(12.) Circumcision signified the taking away the Sins of the Flesh, or the Circumcision of the Heart: but Baptism signifies the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ, which Circumcision did not.

(13.) Circumcision was to be a Partition-Wall betwixt Jew and Gentile; but Baptism testifieth that Jew and Gentile, Male and Female; Barbarian and Scythian, Bond and Free, are all one in Christ Jesus. Therefore there are invers Disparities and different Significations between Circumcision and Baptism.”

–Benjamin Keach, Rector Rectified and Corrected, 1692, pp. 5–6.

Keach’s Catechism Questions 103 & 104

Q. 103. How is Baptism rightly administered?

A. Baptism is rightly administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body of the person in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Q. 104. What is the duty of those who are rightly baptized?

A. It is the duty of those who are rightly baptized to give up (join) themselves to some visible and orderly church of Jesus Christ, that they may walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

Baptism is the immersion, or dipping, of the person in water. This best models the representative nature of the act of baptism and the meaning of the word βαπτιζω/baptizo, which is “to dip, immerse, plunge.” I’m not going to get into this too much because people have expressed this in a much better way than I could, both in writing and in speach. I will simply point you to one well done paper on this subject here: http://www.sgbcsv.org/literature/BelieversBaptism.pdf

Baptism will usually take the form of, “[Name], based on your profession faith I now baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.” The first part, “based on your profession of faith” is very imporant, and I will come back to that. Next comes “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” comes from Matthew 28:19. Then, “buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life” is sometimes (often?) said while the person is being dipped into the water. This comes from Romans 6:4, which says, “We are buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” The first part, “based on your profession of faith” is important because it shows that there should be discernment on the part of the minister as to the spiritual condition of the individual. I believe, and this is not a universal belief among Baptists, that individuals should not be baptized before they are at least in their teens. The reason I believe this is because I think a profession of faith before this cannot be discerned by the church and the minister. I am not saying that I do not think that children can have a saving faith in the Lord, but only, that the church cannot discern as clearly whether they are expressing their own faith or mimicking the faith of their parents. I also think that at least a small amount of catechesis should be done beforehand for the sake of preparing the individual for their entrance into the Body. Because baptism is an initiation right of sorts, it is important that the church prepare the individual for what that means. Sometimes churches have done a catechesis class for new believers and afterward, the next Resurrection Sunday (Easter), they will do a baptism of those who have been through it.

As I said earlier, Baptism is an initiation of sorts for inclusion into the visible Body of Christ. I think when we misunderstand this we end up with a failure at various points. To neglect baptism is to essentially say, “I think what you guys are saying is true, but I just don’t want to be included.” For the church to miss that it is inclusion into the body, it ends up with people being baptized without any real knowledge of where they go from there. When we understand it properly, the individual is joined to the body for discipling, care, and discipline. They become a recognized member of the family. I was going to use a couple different metaphors, but our culture has gotten marriage pretty messed up so they don’t work. The two I was going to use are: two people are living together, raising a family together, but don’t want to go through the process of entering a recognized matrimony. This should be unthinkable, but the sad fact that we do it in our relationships and in our churches today. The other one I was going to use was the idea of a woman not changing her name when she becomes one with her husband. It’s like, “Yeah, we’re married, but I still wanna be my own person.” Though this would seem unthinkable before, it is obviously a prevalent practice, in both marriages and the neglect of baptism. “Yeah, I have faith in Christ, but I still want to be recognized as my own person instead of just a member in a body.”

These things are more controversial today than ever. We have tons of baptized unregenerate (unsaved) people, as well as tons of unbaptized regenerate (saved). Baptisms often take place among those who cannot actually articulate what they believe, they take place apart from the church, or they are neglected altogether. People believe that they are saved because they have been baptized or that they don’t need to be baptized at all. This issue is a mess, and I think our churches need to get it under control.

Tomorrow we will be looking at the difference between the visible and invisible church. As a transition statement, I would like to say that baptism is the act that marks a person as a member of the visible church. We will look at what this means more tomorrow.

Keach’s Catechism Questions 101 & 102

Q. 101. To whom is Baptism to be administered?

A. Baptism is to be administered to all those who actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ; and to none other.

Q. 102. Are the infants of such as are professing believers to be baptized?

A. The infants of such as are professing believers are not to be baptized; because there is neither command nor example in the Holy Scriptures, or certain consequence from them, to baptize such.

Well, here’s the point where things become obviously controversial. The very first statement, “Baptism is to be administered to all those who actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ,” is as far as common doctrine among what are called “paedobaptists” and “credobaptists” go. The paedobaptist position, coming from “παις/pais” or even “παιδιον/paidion” (which is really related to pais) which mean “child,” is that the infants of believers are to be baptized. The way this works is, say I came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ right now, and went to be baptized, my children would be baptized along with me. My unborn child would also be baptized after s/he is born. The claim is that baptism has replaced circumcision as the sign of the covenant, and therefore, just as the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, were circumcized, so to must the children of New Testament believers be baptized. There is some historical precedent, seeing that some people did baptize their children in the early church (after the biblical witness) and especially from the fourth century to the sixteenth century the entire church baptized their children.

Credobaptism, coming from credo which is latin for “I believe,” is the position that only professing believers are to be baptized. Our distinction is in the rest of Question 101 “and to none other.” Obviously, Question 102 gives the reason why we do not believe that baptism includes the infants of believers. When we look at Scriptures, we do not see either the prescriptive command to baptize children nor the descriptive example of infants who were baptized. This position is challenged by paedobaptists who say that the “whole household” baptisms of Acts must have included children. Further, they go to 1 Corinthians 7:14 for the statement that children are made holy by a believing parent. There has also been some appeal to Colossians 2, which is sometimes used to support the idea that it replaces circumcision. There are many problems with these examples, usually due to the fact that there are presuppositions read into a text and a text taken out of context. Both groups approach statements of household baptisms with a presupposition. Credobaptists, from here on called simply Baptists (though there are other groups that practice only credobaptism), presuppose that it does not include infants and Paedobaptists pressupose that it does. When we look through the text of the New Testament, seeing each of the new baptisms that occur, we consistently see a direct conection between belief and baptism. This occurs even at the time when a household believes and is baptized. From these examples, we believe that the only proper recipient of baptism is a person who makes an acutal profession of faith.

For what I think is a pretty clear and straigthforward presentation of this view, you can watch Alistair Begg give his explanation of why we only baptize professing believers here: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/orlando_1997_national_conference/believers-baptism/

On a slightly different note, there is a conference called the “9Marks Conference” going on right now at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. 9 Marks is a ministry of a pastor in Washington, D.C. named Mark Dever, who wrote a book a while back called Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. His ministry is geared toward building healthy churches and they have produced many books about different aspects of this. Their website is http://www.9marks.org and the videos from this years conference can be found at http://multimedia.sebts.edu. The speakers are Mark Dever, Alistair Begg, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ligon Duncan, Danny Akin, and Jonathan Leeman. The topic of this years conference is church membership. In the second panel discussion, they discussed the proper age of baptism, which is why I said that it was kind of related to today’s post.

Anyway, I know I didn’t get into this issue as much as I could have. I think that if we look at Scripture alone, we cannot come away thinking “I need to baptize my infant children.” This is the thinking that is expressed in Question 102 and it is only included in Question 101 through the phrase “and to none other” because of the universal inclusion of the practice throughout the Middle Ages and retention in even many Protestant churches today.

Keach’s Catechism Questions 99 & 100

Q. 99. Wherein do Baptism and the Lord’s Supper differ from the other ordinances of God?

A. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper differ from the other ordinances of God in that they were specially instituted by Christ to represent and apply to believers the benefits of the new covenant by visible and outward signs.

Q. 100. What is Baptism?

A. Baptism is an holy ordinance, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, signifies our ingrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.

Unlike Scripture reading and prayer, which were practiced by the people of God prior to Christ’s first appearing, the Lord’s Supper and Baptism were specific practices instituted by Jesus Himself. These practices were begun as means of visually and physically representing the inward work of the Spirit in our lives. Of course, nowadays it seems that these two ordinances are being practiced less and less. The Lord’s Supper has become rare enough that it’s seen as a side-note sort of thing that church does every now and then. Baptism is allowed to be postponed until the individual feels like doing it. These graces, instituted by Christ, were given to us as gifts. In baptism, moving into Question 100, being washed in water is a sign that we have been joined to Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (cf. Rom 6). We move into this sign with an understanding that we are those who have been redeemed by grace, and now we are living as servants of Christ. As churches, we must be calling those who have made a profession of faith to baptism.

This is a much shorter post than most days, but I think it’s just because these questions and answers are so clear cut and the other issues, such as the who? and how? are discussed more in the questions to come. Suffice it to say that a church must be observing the Lord’s Supper and baptizing the converted. These actions are symbolic of a real work that has occurred in the individual on on the Cross by the Spirit of God.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.