As I said in an earlier post, one of the reasons why I used to object to infant baptism was that I believed there were major contrasts between the old and new covenants.

I used to believe one of the drawbacks of God’s covenants in the Old Testament was that Israel’s community was too inclusive. The covenant community allowed those who hadn’t yet professed genuine faith to be a part of it. This is one reason why the new covenant community is so much better today: its members are those who have all made a profession of faith—only they should be baptized, I thought.

In order to consider infant baptism an option I needed to have this premise overturned. I needed to be convinced that the inclusiveness of the old covenant—that is, including children of believers—was not something God sought to change in the new covenant. I needed to see their inclusion not as a weakness but as a blessing. [Read more...]