I am aware that Douglas Wilson is surrounded by a lot of controversy, but I like almost everything he has to say. And the post he made on 10-18-05 HERE, is no exception (yes I know this was almost two months ago, but I want to post about this anyway).

Here is a quote from that post:

The New Testament identifies believing synagogues as churches. James identifies the two in his letter. If a man in filthy rags comes into your synagogue (Jas. 2:2), don’t do thus and such. And if anyone there is sick, let him call for the elders of the church (Jas. 5:14). Now when Paul came to Jerusalem (where many of these believing synagogues were), he went out of his way to reassure everybody that he was not teaching Jews to discontinue circumcising their infants. This means, in the short form, that there were New Testament churches that had infant members. A circumcised infant in a believing synagogue was a member of that church. Now if Jewish churches/synagogues had infant members, on what grounds could we exclude infants from membership in Gentile churches? We could not exclude them. But we could say that circumcision was not required for them, because the sign and seal of the covenant was in the process of being changed to baptism. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:27-29).

I would like to make a point of my own here. The New Covenant cannot be less inclusive than the Old Covenant, unless you are willing to say that the Old Covenant was a better covenant, which we know is not the case. The problem here is that, if you say Children of Christian parents cannot be members of the church (the local and visible expression of the universal Church) until they have made a profession of faith, you have now made the New Covenant Less inclusive than the Old.

Later on in the same post, Douglas Wilson asks a very searching question:

Are you prepared to maintain that an infant brought to your congregation (formally and covenantally excluded) is in the same position as an infant brought to a believing synagogue in Jerusalem in AD 52? Not only would the believing synagogue not exclude such an infant, I believe that they would have difficulty even comprehending the concept of excluding the infants. And if there was such a generation-long uproar over the inclusion of the Gentiles, what would the commotion have been if the apostles really were teaching the Jews that not only must you start admitting the Gentile adults, but you must start excluding your own children? I have trouble believing that this would not have caused the Mother of all Theological Controversies. But there is not a word about such a controversy in the New Testament.

The problem is that the meaning of covenant is something that most of Christendom has forgotten. Being a member of the covenant, being a part of the local body, being a part of the visible church, none of these things specifically equal election/salvation, just as being a covenant member of the Children of Israel did not equal election/salvation.

However, being a part of the visible church means you have taken on the name of Christ. By means of your baptism you have had the mark of Christ placed upon you. Just as in the Old Covenant, if you were born an Israelite, you were a member of the Covenant and must receive the mark of that covenant. If you didn’t you had broken God’s covenant with His people.

But now somehow in the New Covenant, we think that our children are not Christians until they have made a profession of faith. In light of the Old Covenant, this concept has become very hard to swallow. Just how is this possible anyway? Can anyone explain to me how we got this mixed up?

Well, I think it is time we un-mix it up…