Why I Baptized My Babies (Part 6)

When I first started interacting with more paedobaptists, their argument about circumcision and baptism seemed clear enough. God told Abraham that all his male descendants should be marked with circumcision as a sign that they were members of the covenant community. Knowing this, is there any corresponding mark that members of the new covenant community have? Yes, baptism. Just as God commanded adult covenant members to circumcise themselves and their children, so God must want Christian converts to do the same for their households.

But does baptism really replace circumcision? This was one of my questions about infant baptism. The New Testament never directly says that baptism replaces circumcision. The absence of any clear statement is startling.

In all the controversies among the first generation Christians that raged around the subject of circumcision, at no point does Peter, Paul, or any other apostle try to alleviate the problem by saying, “The reason you shouldn’t be circumcised is because baptism now replaces it.” For instance, in Acts 15 when the apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to settle the question about Gentiles being circumcised, at no point did the subject of baptism arise. If baptism really had replaced circumcision, wouldn’t this argument have silenced the Judaizers?