Baptism and sacred lineage

Acknowledging that baptism takes the place of circumcision, need not of necessity demand that the covenant sign be administered to the children of believers now. At least one aspect of circumcision, for which it was an eminently fitting sign, was that it functioned as the sign of the sacred lineage of Israel which ended with Christ the promised seed. It would appear that this aspect of the sign has now lost it's significance. While both the New Testament church and Old Testament Israel are God's people, it must be acknowledged that pre first-advent Israel alone had the role of ensuring that blessing would come by way of decent through Abraham's physical seed (Gal.3:16). This is not to deny the continuity that clearly exists between Old Testament Israel and the church but to seek to take account of the biblically framed distinctives.

Barth speaks of the redemptive-historical change which he understands has come about in the relation between parents and children. In the Old Covenant, marriage and propagation were determined by their place in the history of redemption: before Christ came there was "a redemptive-historical necessity of propagation." But after Christ came this necessity ceased to exist because the sacred lineage had found its fulfillment and hence also its termination. Thus he suggests, "it could have continued, but it did not have to."

Since Christ's first advent, salvation is no longer of necessity bound to the succession of generations. "It was," says Barth, "now a matter of man being God's child in his spiritual communion with the one Son of God and Men. Of God's children it can henceforth be said with Jn. 1:13 that they do not receive life by means of the will of man, but of God."

Critiquing Barth, Berkouwer notes that it is the contrast which he assumes between natural and spiritual birth that leads him astray. He states, "to contrast spiritual birth since the coming of Messiah with natural birth in the lineage of Israel, is to misunderstand the spiritual significance of God's covenant and of circumcision. ... it was never the case in the Old Testament that natural birth, apart from faith, placed a person automatically amongst the people of God."

But Berkouwer's criticism fails precisely on the point of Barth's distinctive. One can acknowledge with Berkouwer that the prophets demanded faith under the Old Covenant and that those adults lacking such and demonstrating open rebellion against the covenant would have come rightly under it's sanctions. Yet it is obvious that it certainly was the case that "natural birth, apart from faith, placed a person automatically amongst the people of God," for it was impossible to be born into Israel and not become a member of God's people, and that in order that the sacred lineage might continue until the promised seed arrived.

Paedobaptists often seem so keen to affirm the spiritual nature of the Covenant with Abraham, which Romans 4 clearly says was one of faith, that when Credobaptists state that there are also natural or physical elements inherent to that Covenant then they are heard as saying the Old Covenant was only merely external. It seems to me that Israel's distinctive role in redemption history as those through whose lineage the Messiah must come, demonstrates that Abraham's children are those of faith (Rom. 4:12) and hence the covenant has a truly spiritual aspect, but also during the time prior to Christ's advent, his physical decedents, some of whom will share in his faith, whilst others evidence that they do not.