The Bible makes a connection between baptism and circumcision in a limited way. Because it is limited, there is a danger in assuming too much about this connection. For example, some have assumed that since circumcision was performed on babies in the Old Testament, we should perform baptism on babies in the New Testament. That assumes too much, goes too far, and ignores a Scripture that says the exact opposite. Let’s unpack all of these ideas in this lesson.
First, how is baptism similar to circumcision? “Circumcise” is a translation from a Greek word that means “to cut around.” In the Law of Moses to the Israelites, God commanded that the male children be circumcised on the eighth day after birth (see Leviticus 12:3), which meant that the loose skin around the genital organ was to be surgically removed. The Israelites were not the first or only people in ancient history to practice circumcision. According to Herodotus 2.37, the Egyptians practiced it. And before God called Moses, He had instructed Abraham and all of his descendants to practice it on their male children.
Although circumcision may have provided medical or hygienic benefits for the people of Israel, it was not for those reasons. It was, instead, a sign in the flesh that certain individuals had entered into a covenant relationship with God.
And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations. … My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Genesis 17:9–14
Truly, all one had to do to become a child of God among His special people was to be born among them. There was no choice in the matter. From Abraham throughout all his generations (which included the Hebrews), God gave them circumcision as a gift and a sign of being in covenant with Him. Although this was something that was performed on the outside, one fact must be noted: All of God’s commandments must be obeyed with sincerity. When Stephen, a disciple of Christ, was trying to preach Jesus to a group of Jews, they rejected his message. Although Stephen’s audience had been physically circumcised, Stephen accused them:
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
Acts 7:51
Sure, they had gone through the covenant ritual, but inwardly, they were no better than pagans. Before entering the promised land, God assured the Israelites through Moses that if they wandered away from the truth and later repented:
The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Deuteronomy 30:6
Although physical circumcision was a requirement for a covenant relationship with God among males, just going through the process did not make the person right with God. He also needed to give his heart to the Lord. But how could an infant be expected to do that? He couldn’t. That’s why God instructed the parents and grandparents of the child:
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Deuteronomy 6:7
(This point will be important when we later examine the passage that refutes the claim that circumcision supports infant baptism.)
There is only one passage in Scripture that explicitly connects baptism and circumcision, and it does so in a limited way:
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Colossians 2:11–15
Although one must choose to submit to God in baptism, who is doing the work? The sinner? The baptizer? The apostle Paul here says the person being baptized must have “faith in the working of God.” To the person who would criticize a biblical teaching of baptism by saying, “That’s a works-based salvation!” I say: “Absolutely! I cannot be saved without the working of God!” It’s not my works that save. It’s God’s!
In circumcision, flesh is cut away, and the person is blessed to be in a covenant relationship with God. In baptism (which is called “the circumcision of Christ” in this passage), God cuts away the sin from a sinner’s heart, and he or she is blessed to enter a covenant relationship with Christ. True covenant cannot happen today without our meeting this condition. Baptism is when the person who is “dead in [their] trespasses and the uncircumcision of [their] flesh” appeals to God for a clean conscience through Jesus’ resurrection (see 1 Peter 3:21). Once the faithful person submits to God in this rite, God forgives the person’s trespasses and raises them up together with Jesus. Compare this passage with Romans 6:1–7.
In this limited way, the Bible compares circumcision with baptism. It would stretch the analogy, then, to say, “Since circumcision was performed on infants under Moses, baptism should be performed on infants under Jesus.” This approach is erroneous in two ways:
- It goes beyond what the Scriptures teach.
- It destroys God’s purpose for His new covenant.
Here’s what I mean by that second point:
While Jeremiah ministered to the people of God six centuries before Christ, God promised to make a new covenant through Jesus. In the passage that refutes the idea of infant baptism, here’s what the author of Hebrews says:
But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says [quoting from Jeremiah 31:31–34]: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Hebrews 8:6–13
The new covenant of Jesus has made the old covenant (and therefore, circumcision as a physical covenantal sign) obsolete. We know that Christ has given us something new and better. There’s a curious facet to this new covenant Jesus established for His people. The text says, “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord.’” Wait a minute. I thought the gospel was meant to be taught to all nations and every creature. Yet here the Bible says people won’t be teaching others to know the Lord. What’s up with that? The Bible gives the answer: “for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” When the passage speaks of them here, who does God have in mind? Those who are in covenant with Jesus. Remember that, under Moses, a child entered a covenant relationship with God through birth (and circumcision if he were male). But the child would then need to be taught to know the Lord as he or she grew up. Under Jesus, however, the people in covenant with God do not need to be taught to know the Lord because they already do. Here, the text explains that the covenant is entered when the Lord forgives a person’s iniquities. When does that happen? The text that compared baptism with circumcision says it is at baptism that God forgives and cuts away our trespasses. And here, we see only those who know the Lord are in the new covenant with Jesus—only those who are old enough to have heard and have believed the gospel. In other words, not infants.1
Throughout the New Testament, people are told to believe and repent before being baptized into Jesus. If someone has biblically been baptized into Christ, they have done so by choice, having heard and believed the gospel. No one walks up to a devoted disciple of Jesus and asks, “Have you ever heard the good news of Jesus Christ?” By definition, if you are in Christ, not only have you heard about Jesus, but you also believe and know Christ, and you’ve been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ (you’ve been baptized)! You are in covenant by choice.
As Jesus came preaching the coming of the kingdom of God, He had a conversation with a Pharisee, one who had been born under Moses and had been physically circumcised.
This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
John 3:2–5
Although Nicodemus had no choice in his physical lineage, Jesus here provided him with an opportunity to be born of water and the Spirit into a new kingdom. Although he had been physically circumcised, Jesus urged him to submit to the circumcision of the heart—baptism.
That’s a key part of the new covenant of Jesus. Abraham is known as the father of the faithful. Faithfulness leads to God. The Jews of Jesus’ time thought that being a physical descendant of Abraham was enough to secure their future. Check this out:
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
John 8:31–36
It is important to be a child of Abraham, but not in the way they were thinking. Sonship to Abraham is available for people of all nations. Paul explained to the Christians in Galatia:
For you are all sons [children] of God through faith in Christ Jesus. [When did this happen, Paul?] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed [descendant], and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:26–29
All people—male, female, slave, free, circumcised, uncircumcised, Jew, and Gentile—can become children of Abraham (in covenant with God) through faith and baptism into Christ. It is not about being born as a Jew and getting circumcised. It is about being born again by choice of water and the Spirit through the circumcision of Christ.
Just as physical circumcision was under Moses, baptism under Christ is a requirement for a covenant relationship with God today. Do not be fooled, however, into thinking that going down into the water is enough by itself. Every person must submit his or her heart completely to the Lord. Otherwise, baptism is turned into a useless ritual. Instead, it is about being born anew.
We’d like to recommend two studies to you now. One is a deeper dive into what it means to be born of water and Spirit, and the other is a deeper study on the subject of infant baptism. Which one will you study next?
- It is interesting that those who claim that infant circumcision in the Old Testament provides grounds for infant baptism in the New Testament do not apply their reasoning all the way. If their premise is true, then only male infants at eight days old should be baptized. ↩︎