From, "What The Bible Says About Covenant"
by Mont W. Smith
page 300 - 312.
Christ the Covenant
Messiah was described as a covenant Himself.
I will keep you and make you a covenant for the peoples, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness (Isa. 42:6ff.)
The passage was quoted by jesus. he was a covenant (Matt. 12:14ff). Christ stood between God and man as covenant did. he was helpless mankind's link to God. God would accept reconciliation with man through Christ. He was the only access to God.
No one comes to the Father but through me. If you really knew me you would know my Father as well. From now on you know him and have seen him (John 14:6f.).
Such an announcement immediately separated mankind into two categories: those "in Christ," and those not in Christ. The people not in Christ were regarded as hostile aliens, as "dead" in sins and trespasses regardless of their moral conduct (Acts 11:14). In Ephesians Paul carried to its conclusion the stated premise of Christ. He identified all men not in Christ as "dead, culture led, philosophy led, Satan led, disobedient, separated, excluded, without God, without hope, hostile, far off, foreigners and aliens (Eph. 2:1ff.). When "in Christ," one was raised up, saved, recreated, brought near, at peace with, fellow-citizens with God's people, and members of God's household (Eph. 2:14ff.). The church of Christ was the continuation of the covenanted people of God. One ws "elect" in Christ (v.4) having been adopted, redeemed, and forgiven "through the blood." There can be no doubt of the covenant orientation of Paul. He used covenant terminology in the discussion.
The Second Birth
One came into the first kingdom of Israel (Deut. 19:5ff.) by birth into the covenanted people. One came into the second kingdom, the kingdom of Messiah, by the second birth. "Made alive" (Eph. 2:1) probably had reference to a resurrection from the dead lot of humanity, but the metaphor paralleled the concept of being born again (John 3:3). Jesus' language of new birth was followed by Paul (Philemon 1:10), Peter (1 Pet. 1:21ff.), John (1 John 2:29). The terminology was covenantal (john 3:1ff.) referring to the parties.
One's new birth began when the gospel was "planted" in his mind (James 1:18-22). The "seed" was the message of Christ (1 Pet. 1:2f.). The embryo was created when the evidence of the death and resurrection was presented and belief began (1 Cor. 4:15). Gestation was short or long, depending on each convert. Gestation was "coming to one's self" (Luke 15:17), for "a godly sorrow for sin lendeth a man to repentance" (2 Cor. 7:10). The actual birth occurred in water (Titus 3:5). Baptism was the pledge of loyalty from a good conscience to God (1 Pet. 3:21). The covenant bound when the birth took place or when the oath was taken (Heb. 9:18). No other view was represented in any writings of the ancient church during the first four hundred years. (Alexander Campbell, Christian System, 1835, Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., Reprinted, p. 189.) Only a small, if vocal, minority of Christian scholars published a different view. It is the consensus of informed scholarship that baptism was the water of regeneration.
Prior to the execution of a single stipulation of the New Covenant Messiah granted to the believer citizenship (Gal. 3:27), remission of sin (Acts 2:38), the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and participation in all future promises (Rom. 8:17ff.). It may be correctly stated that no Christian had his sins remitted by any stipulation or work of the New Covenant. He received that grace as a gift of God upon his surrender and pledge to God.
The entire process of the new birth was under the supervision of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ revealed the message (1 Cor. 2:13f.), sent out the preachers (Acts 13:1-3), often found the prospects (Acts 16:9ff.), got the parties together (Acts 8:26f.), sometimes overcame language barriers (Acts 2:4ff.), and demonstrated his own satisfaction with the message of sign and miracles (Heb. 2:2ff.). Accordingly anyone thus converted was regarded as born of the Spirit (John 3:5). We might say the Spirit was ultimate cause (John 3:5), the Spirit's preacher the efficient cause (1 Cor. 4:15), the message of the Spirit the immediate cause (James 1;18), and the heart of faith the submissive cause (Acts 2:40). The new birth was by divine initiation, but was accomplished by mutual participation. After all, it does take two to make a baby!
Paul discussed the same process in Romans Ten, but in reverse order.
Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? (Rom. 10:13-15).
The only description we have in Acts of "calling on His name," was in reference to Paul himself. He had been praying for several days, presumably asking for God's forgiveness. Ananias told him,
And now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name (Acts 22:16).
Baptism as Covenant Pledge
The waters of Noah brought death to the sinners in his time. The same water saved Noah, by God's grace. Water was judgment and water separated the living from the dead. The water of Christ was also a kind of judgment. (Merideth Kline, By Oath Consigned, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968, p 65ff.) It was a judgment on sin. It was both God's judgment and the convert's. One's old life was sinful; they agreed o that judgment. The soul that sinneth, it shall die - was agreed upon by each. The water was also a pledge by both. The sinner pledged to God his life and God pledged admission to the covenant.
In it, only a few people were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism what now saves you also - not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Christ (I Pet. 3:21).
Some former translations used the word "answer." The gospel offered to a sin sick civilization a cleansing of conscience. The sinner had God's assurance of forgiveness if he but said, "Yes." Baptism was man's answer to God. The word endings in Greek allowed for either the initiative or the responsive rendering. Some translators preferred the initiative form: pledge or an asking, while others the responsive form: an answer.
"the prayer for a clear conscience before God" - Moffatt
"the answer of a good conscience" - KJV
"the craving for a clear conscience" - Williams
"the appeal made to God" - NEB
"the request to God for" - Schonfield
"the interrogation of a good conscience" - ASV
"the asking God for a clear conscience" - Beck
"because in being baptized we are turning to God and asking him to cleanse our hearts from sin" - Living Bible
"the pledge of a good conscience" - NIV
When one entered the waters of baptism he was testifying to his faith in the death and resurrection. Actually he was speaking of three deaths and resurrections. He was saying, "I believe Jesus Christ was buried and raised from the dead, just as I am going under this water, cut off from life, and will come up again." He was also saying, "As Jesus died and rose again, so my old way of life is dead and buried; and as He rose from death, so I shall be a new person and live as He directs." And in a sense he was saying, "Some day I shall die and be buried in the earth. But I believe, as surely as He rose again, and as surely as this one brings me up out of the water, I shall come u out of the grave, because of His own resurrection" (Rom 6:4-6).
The witnesses to a baptism was the believer alive and in view, as people once was Jesus. Then the candidate disappeared form sight in the water as Jesus did in the tomb. They saw him once again as Jesus was seen once again after His resurrection. From the perspective of the candidate, he was alive and breathing once. Now he was under the water, cut off from life-support systems, as Jesus was cut off. If the one baptizing did not bring him up, he would stay there and die, so to speak. But God, through the church, brought him up to air and life, as Jesus was raised to live forever.
Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection, The second death has no power over them (Rev. 10:6).
Baptism was, in addition to the beautiful symbolism of death and resurrection, a statement being made to God. This is somewhat a pledge every seeker made to God at baptism.
"My fee go into the water, into death. Never again will my feet walk to evil. My genitals are buried to sin. Never will they be allowed to serve evil. My hands are immersed. They will not steal, strike in anger, oppress the poor, or attack the weak. My hands are pledged to Christ. My mind, ambition, ability, imagination, are all immersed. Never again will I use my head for wrong goals, improper gain , or inappropriate dreams or fantasy. My head, heart, and soul are all pledged to God.
The person I once was is now dead and buried. I make that pledge. The person I am to be is alive for Christ's use. I make that pledge. I am all Christ's. My answer, Lord, is "Yes." I give this act as my most sacred oath."
Baptism now saves you, ... as a pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Pet. 3:21).
Prayer was never used as an oath or answer in the New Testament. It lacked essential ingredients to be a Hebrew oath. It had no death in it. And it was too gnostic. Prayer involved the mind, certainly, and the emotions, and some of the will, but only a part of the will. And prayer lacked the body - essential for Hebrew personhood. A person's body sinned. In their minds it was a "body of sin," a dead weight of years of defilement. It needed cleansing. Baptism involved all of man's nature. Prayer only promised to deliver the body of God. Baptism delivered it.
Water was associated with oath taking from the time of Moses. At the oath swearing at Sinai, Moses mixed the blood with water, to extend its use. By the time the 600,000 had passed, there might have been a thin mixture left! The Syrian, Naaman was cleansed by dipping himself in water. The proselytes dipped themselves in the waters of baptism as an initiation or a "choosing into" the brotherhood of Israel. When the Lord Jesus was slain - in God's oath taking, blood and water flowed from his side. Paul linked the death of Jesus, i.e. , the blood, with a believer's baptism. It recalled a commitment made there.
We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with hi through baptism, into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death, we shall certainly be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been freed from sin (Rom. 6:2-7).
The conscience would be cleansed at baptism only if the candidate believed two things. He must truly believe with a good conscience, "in his heart," that Jesus rose from the dead. Without that, it would be mere ceremonial game playing. And, he must believe God has promised him remission of sin and admission to covenanted peace when that oath is sworn. If the candidate felt relief and joy when he arose (Acts 8:39) he believed God. If he had no relief, he was either mistaught, and thus cheated of his birthright, or he did not believe the scriptures. The linking of baptism with remission of sin is illustrated by this parallel. Both involved a pledging. God pledged in a very physical way at Calvary. He expects man to do the same.
This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many...for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28)
Repent and be baptized...for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).
Of course, there was no eternal or magical link of remission of sin to baptism. The link was covenantal. It was parallel to the cleansing of Naaman.
There was nothing about water as opposed to sand or sawdust as an element making baptism function as intended. God made things valuable by His selection of them for a purpose. he could have used any number of ways for man to respond. He chose baptism. I had value only because it was covenanted. If one were unable to be baptized, perhaps God would consider an alternative, although we have no examples of that being done. The point is baptism was neither legalistic nor mechanical. It was moral. After all, how can on mean, "Yes," to God while saying no to baptism? Nor is it satisfactory to identify physical acts of faith as "works" and mental acts as "faith." Works, in the theology of Paul, were never identified as the execution of a command of Christ or the Apostles. Works were, for Paul, doing what the law had required (Gal. 3:2) or a self-announced definition of good deed (Eph 2:9). God's free gift can be unmerited, not earned, not deserved and yet be conditional or mutual. God gave (graced) Joshua Jericho, but Joshua was required to participate in the work of faith. Naaman was freely given cleansing, but he had to obey.
The basic and root theological error resulting in the low view of baptism came from the adoption of Greek presuppositions about matter and spirit. For the Greeks, matter was wrong and unspiritual. Spirit had no form, color, substance, and was pure "spirit." when that assumption was carried into Christian thought, it came to be expressed by the statement: "No physical act can have anything to do with a man's salvation." Thus mental processes came to be identified as faith and physical processes works. That two-category explanation can be of little use in Bible study, for the Bible is Covenant. Covenants were mutual and conditional in nature. The above stated Greek type principle, if carried to its logical conclusion would also eliminate the cross, the church and the incarnation. Each was quite physical. Such an assumption is a revival of gnosticism, although in a much milder form. Its revival was carried by certain strains of European protestantism. The reformation was part of the renaissance. The renaissance was produced by the Greek revival. (Edward M. Hulme, Renaissance and Reformation, New York: Century Publishing Co., 1917, p. 88-91)
In covenant, the forms taken had no value in and of themselves (as with the water in baptism). Their value came by inclusion as part of a covenant.
That is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle, "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain" (Exod. 25:40). The ministry Jesus has...is superior to the old one...(Heb. 8:24, 25).
Baptism and Circumcision
There is a difference between the oath or pledge of a covenant and the "sign" of a covenant. The Hebrew for oath was alah. It also was used for "the curse of covenant," because an oath was both a commitment and a self-curse. The sign of a covenant was 'ot. The oath was walking between the halves of the slain animals, touching "the blood of the covenant." A sign was a visible representation or memorial to that ceremony. It may have been a pile of rocks (Gen. 31:44f), or a rainbow (Gen. 9:13), or others. The oath swearing of God and Abraham was passing between the halves (Gen. 15:17, 18). The sign of the covenant signed that night was circumcision (17:11). The sign of the Mosaic covenant was the Sabbath (Exodus 31:13). The sign of the Christian covenant was possessing the Holy Spirit, or living the kind of life Jesus did (Eph. 1:13).
A passage in Colossians used the words, circumcision, sinful nature, the circumcision of Christ, and baptism as burial together in a discussion. Paul did not equate circumcision with baptism. He did not use them in parallel. The "circumcision not done with hands," that is, "the circumcision of Christ," was his death. He was cut off. His entire body on the cross was "circumcised." The Christian joined Christ at baptism when he participated in that death and resurrection.
What happened at Calvary was not a symbolic oath-cursing bu the actual carrying out of the curse in the circumcision of God in the crucifixion of his only begotten son. There "the body of [Jesus'] flesh by his death" (Col. 1:22) was actually cut off (apekdusis) (Col. 2:11) so that "we [Jew and Gentile] might be presented holy and blameless and irreproachable," who once were "estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds" (Col. 1:21, 22)...Paul used apekdusis...
To catch the sense of the word, we should translate it "fully put off" expressing the exclusion of every possibility of returning again to the former state or condition. Paul means therefore, that Jesus' death was HIS circumcision. (Paul Jewett, Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978, p. 89.)
The Christian took the initial oath at his own death and resurrection at baptism. Paul did not mean baptism as Christian circumcision. The death of christ, as he paid the "curses" of the covenant, symbolized by the cutting off in circumcision, was the cutting off of the entire Old System. Paul's point was that a Jew need for fear any "cutting off" from God because he abandoned the Old Covenant. Yes, he said, God would curse anyone not circumcised. But all indeed were circumcised with Christ suffered the penalty in his being "cut off" for all mankind. And, he added, all participated in the benefits found at the cross when baptized into Christ's death.
The use of the aorist passive throughout the passage, makes it evident that to experience the circumcision of Christ in putting off the body of flesh, is the same thing as being buried and raised with him in baptism through faith. (Jewett, ibid., p. 89.)
This is not to say, however, that baptism and circumcision are equated as signs. The Apostolic parallels were these:
Base of Covenant: Jewish - In the flesh of Abraham. Christian - By choice, i.e. by the spirit, of Christ.
Entry into: Jewish - By birth as a blood descendant of Abraham. Christian - By rebirth culminated at baptism.
The sign or seal: Jewish - Circumcision at eight days. Christian - Walking by the Spirit.
The danger of equating the signs, of making baptism and circumcision both "seal," serving the same purpose, is to raise contradiction in Paul's experience and theology. It was but a short step from "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value" (Gal. 5:6), to "neither baptism nor unbaptism has any value." That would, of course, contradict Christ (Mark 16:15, 16). Paul could indeed say circumcision meant nothing. That was true. It was "dead works"; but it was dead works because the Law of which it was a part was "dead" (Rom. 7:1ff.). Paul would never have said such a thing had the Law been still in force.
One thing is clear, water apart from pledge and belief in the gospel by the candidate was works righteousness. It was meaningless. Faith was what made baptism do what was intended. The purpose of baptism was to give an unforgettable pledge demonstrating to God the will and the ability to bring Him that "body of sin," for cleansing. God demonstrated His intentions at Calvary in a very real and physical way. God honored man by graciously allowing him to reciprocate as covenant partner.
Since man's sins were moral, infants were not regarded as sinners (Isa. 7:15, 16). Jesus used the innocence of children as examples of the innocence found in the new kingdom (Matt. 19:14). When entire "households" became Christian (Acts 11:14), it must not be assumed infants were included. Baptism was oath taking, and a covenant could be entered only by those able to understand the moral commitment being made there (Neh. 10:28, 29). Covenant allowed for both God's part in salvation and man's responsibility for evidence and his responsibility to exhibit his battered but valid image of God. God initiated covenants; they were written by Him, handed down to mankind, and man was saved by accepting God's offer. The entire New Covenant was a covenant of grace. It was God's kiss of love to estranged and lonely man. The praise belonged to Him and Him alone (Eph. 1:14)
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