A Review: “Infant Baptism Demonstrated To Be Reasonable, Historical And Scriptural”, By James Malcom

Gospel Standard 1882:

A Review

Infant Baptism demonstrated to be Reasonable, Historical, and Scriptural. By Jas. Malcolm, Missionary. London: Houlston and Sons, 7, Paternoster Buildings; Glasgow: Porteous Bros., 35, West Nile Street; or from the Author, 108, Buccleugh Street.

MR. MALCOLM comes before his readers fully persuaded in his own mind that he has swept the ground from under the feet of the poor Baptist at last, and left him prostrate on the earth. But why all this determined opposition to a plain truth? Why so much zeal and warmth is there manifested in an old and oft-exploded argument? The whole strength of the arguments brought forward in the work before us is the old, erroneous idea that baptism came in the room of circumcision. It is a notion that takes strong hold of some people’s minds; and of such persons it demands close investigation to see how far the Word of God warrants their conclusion. The following truths are worthy of their consideration:

1. Circumcision is most explicitly stated in Scripture to be a token of the covenant which God had made with Abraham: “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.” (Rom. 4:11.) Abraham, then, was a believer before he was circumcised; and his faith was imputed to him for righteousness while he was yet in uncircumcision. Faith and circumcision are opposed to each other. Faith has to do with the promises; circumcision with the ceremonial law; two subjects at variance one with the other, differing as much as life and death differ. He who was circumcised became a debtor to do the whole law; and justification to him was by works, and not by faith. (Gal. 5:3, 4; 2:16, 18.) But immersion is not of the law, neither is there a law imposed on a baptized person. (Gal. 5:28.) These two opposites could not merge one into the other. This is one proof that baptism could not come into the room of circumcision.

2. The true antitype of circumcision is circumcision of the heart. The type and antitype are described in Scripture as the one being “made by hands” (Eph. 2:11), and the other “without hands.” (Col. 2:11.) There is a circumcision, then, made by the Lord, of which that in the flesh is a type: “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” (Deut. 30:6.) “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” (Col. 2:11.) This is the operation of the Spirit of Christ. Nothing here relates to the outward sign of baptism; for that is made with hands. Spiritual circumcision takes place when any one is cut or pricked to the heart (Acts 2:37), by which act the heart is made single. “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom. 2:28, 29.)

Paul shows in these words that the true antitype, or spiritual circumcision of the heart, had now followed in the room of the outward sign; and was the mark of all God’s spiritual Israel; just as circumcision in the flesh had distinguished all who were God’s people outwardly or nationally. Again he says, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil. 3:3.) How, then, could baptism also be said to have followed in the room of circumcision? To say it has done so is putting it into the place of spiritual circumcision; which is little short of profanity.

Here is a second reason why baptism could not have followed in the place of the ancient Jewish rite.

3. Farther, the national Jew had some confidence in the flesh that he was chosen of God above others. (Phil. 3:4.) There must be some confidence in the flesh in those who cling to infant baptism some idea that baptized infants share God’s favour more than others, at least as much as the national Jew; for baptism is as much an act on the flesh as circumcision. But God has not made any nation his peculiar people, except the Jews of old. When, therefore, they were rejected, a rite extending to all infants would no longer be of any use, nor even allowable. This is a third reason why baptism could not hold the place of circumcision to the Jew.

There is in all the Scriptures not a tittle of evidence, nor yet the shadow of inferential evidence, that baptism came in the room of circumcision. We are struck with the remarkable silence maintained throughout the above work, on the subject of the new birth. There might be no such truth revealed in God’s Word.

4. Baptism is set forth in Scripture as a burial and resurrection. (Col. 2:12.) If a rite is deprived of its scriptural meaning, it may mean anything a fruitful imagination chooses to put upon it. With all due deference to the Scriptures, we hold that burial and resurrection are the two great features of the signification of that ordinance.

The two cardinal points of faith revealed in the whole of Scripture are the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning the first we read, “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22), and that “Christ died for our sins” (l Cor. 15:3); and concerning the second: “If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” (1 Cor. 15:16, 17.) It appears to us that we have two standing ordinances in the Lord’s house to represent these two cardinal doctrines. The one shows forth the Lord’s death till he comes (1 Cor. 11:26); the other, the certainty of his resurrection and that of the church with him. To the last the apostle applies the figure of baptism: “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by” the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:3, 4.) Here, as in Col. 2:12, before cited, we have the spiritual meaning of believer’s baptism declared. Now circumcision in the flesh had no symbolical reference to the death and resurrection of Christ; therefore here is a fourth reason why baptism could not possibly have come in its room. If, then, baptism did not come in the room of circumcision, the whole of Mr. M.’s labour is labour spent in vain.

5. The symbolical meaning of literal circumcision exactly agrees with its antitype. The figure is applied by the Holy Spirit in various places to the act of rendering the heart single: “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart.” (Jer. 4:4.) “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” (Deut. 10:16.) And other passages bear reference to the same figure: “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.” (Col. 3:22; Eph. 6:5; Acts 2:46; Matt. 6:22.) But the symbol of baptism, whether by immersion or sprinkling, infant or adult, has in itself no allusion to the penetrating power of God’s Spirit in the conscience, producing singleness of eye and heart before God. This is a fifth reason why water baptism and circumcision in the flesh have no reference to each other, and one could not occupy the other’s room. Two distinct places they had assigned to them, one in the law and one in the gospel; and two great truths are set forth by them.

The rest of the author’s arguments need no especial notice; for having made for themselves such an imaginary foundation, viz., a supposed similarity between the position of baptized infants and that of the circumcised children of old, they depend mainly on the ancient covenant of circumcision to give the colour of Scripture authority to the custom of sprinkling infants. Therefore, this foundation being removed, the whole theory will doubtless fall to the ground.