40. Full Sermon on Baptizing Nations — Joshua 5

[Read Joshua 5:1-12]

Conversion of Nations

You might wonder how relevant this passage on circumcision and Passover really is. But think of it this way. If baptism replaces circumcision (and it does), and if we are commanded to baptize nations (that’s exactly what Matthew 28 says the church must do before the end of the age), then we ought to be interested in those rare Biblical occasions when an entire nation became a disciple of God and came into covenant with God. I dare say that few of you probably considered this passage to be a paradigm for nation baptizing when I read it. And I think we tend to miss those things because we read the Bible through the glasses of American individualism. In fact, some of you will probably still be somewhat individualistic by the time you get through this service.

Individualists can’t understand how a sign of faith can be applied to an entire nation. We look at that with suspicion and say that this circumcision here can’t possibly be a sign of justification by faith. How could they possibly know these were all Christians? Yet over and over the New Testament affirms that circumcision was identical in its meaning to baptism. Colossians 2:11-12 says that what circumcision was, baptism has become. Galatians says that baptism has replaced circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant of which we are members. Romans 4:11 says that Abraham “received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised.”

But people might think, “Well, even if that is true, this passage still isn’t relevant because that was just a one-time thing. We don’t have nations coming to Christ in the New Testament.” Well, it wasn’t just a one time quirk event. Verse 2 indicates this mass circumcision had happened once before: “At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” This was the second time a mass circumcision had happened to that nation. That indicates there was something unusual that had happened 40 years before as well. Why did they need to be circumcised 40 years before? The church was supposed to circumcise the children of all believing parents. Why were they not circumcised? Because the nation had apostatized in Egypt. Joshua later says that they worshiped the gods of Egypt before they repented and professed faith.

But there’s more. 400 years before the Exodus at the time of Abraham, there were at least 320 people circumcised on the day that Abraham was circumcised, at God’s command. How do we know? Genesis 17 says that all of his servants came into covenant with him, and there were 318 trained warriors who were considered servants born in his household. You add Abraham and Ishmael to the 318 and you have at least 320. A mass corporate coming into the covenant. We don’t talk about that very much, do we? Individualists have a hard time reckoning with that kind of thing.

Numbers 10 records a small tribe of Midianites becoming part of Israel. The entire city of Nineveh along with its king repented at the preaching of Jonah and came to faith. And Christ said that it was genuine faith in Matthew 12:41. Or you can think of Esther 8:17 when multitudes of Persians became Jews and received the sign of circumcision. There was a mass circumcision. Or later in this book when the entire nation of the Gibeonites came to faith. Those kinds of passages (though they are rare) are intriguing when analyzing what it means in the Great Commission to disciple the nations.

Do you realize that nation discipling and nation baptizing has already happened in church history? There have been almost identical situations to this. Usually the Gospel has slowly penetrated an area, but there have been times where God has obviously prepared the hearts of people and an entire tribe would become baptized. Let me outline some history. During the first 400 years the church was winning the Romans with occasional remarkable inroads into people groups. The next 400 years saw the Christianization of the Barbarian tribes. The next 400 years saw tribe after tribe of the Vikings becoming Christian.

But what went on in the first 1500 years, has become more common in the last 500 years, and especially in the last fifty years. It’s spoken of in missions books as People Movements, where an entire clan, tribal subgroup, tribe, or other people group will become Christian in a remarkably short period of time. In fact, this has become so common that entire essays and books have been written trying to understand this phenomenon. In one such essay, Donald McGavran writes, “Individualistic Westerners cannot without special effort grasp how peoples become Christian.”⁵² Another missiologist who describes this amazing phenomenon says Westerners are mystified. Chua Wee Hian says, “At times it is difficult for individualistic Westerners to realize that in many ‘face to face’ societies religious decisions are made corporately.”⁵³ And we are not talking only about a cultural thing. Scripture emphasizes this in its teaching of the covenant. That is why Presbyterians had such phenomenal impact in Korea. They didn’t treat evangelism individualistically.

How many here have seen the film, Peace Child? That shows how the Sawi came to Christ. In that same country of Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea) there were many tribes who became Christian and were baptized at virtually the same time, and they have proved to be genuine conversions. The only instance in the entire world of 100,000 Muslims being won to Christ occurred in a part of Indonesia. Ko Tha Byu, a remarkable Burmese evangelist, was instrumental in discipling whole Karen communities and villages to Christ. Today the Karen church is one of the strongest Christian communities in Southeast Asia numbering in the millions. And coming under incredible persecution by the way. We need to be in prayer for them. In North Sumatra there is the Batak people movement. On the island of Nias, just off the coast of Sumatra, there was a remarkable people movement from 0 Christians to 102,000 Christians. The Minahasa of Celebes is another movement. Entire tribal movements have occurred in the Moluccas, Sangi, and Talaud islands. The islands of the Pacific have been largely and unexpectedly discipled suddenly as people movements: including the Malas, Madigas, Nagas, Garas, Mahars, Bhils, and others. Donald McGavran reports there are literally hundreds of people movements around the world. And this gives heartburn to baptistic missionaries. Entire tribes in Africa, New Guinea, and the Middle East have come to Christ over the course of weeks or months. And we shouldn’t be surprised. Acts 3:25 quotes the repeated promise to Abraham as a promise we must claim when it says, “In your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” That’s a corporate coming to Christ. Psalm 22:27 says, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.” The family is the smallest corporate unit, and reaching families rather than individuals has been the most effective means of reaching tribes. But Galatians 3:8 quotes the often repeated promise, “In you all nations shall be blessed.” Nations are the largest corporate units which are prophesied to come to Christ, and according to several prophecies this will become increasingly common until the Great Commission is fulfilled and all nations become Christian nations. Donald McGavran claims this is God’s normal way of reaching nations. He says, “This is the way in which Evangelical Christianity spread in Roman Catholic Europe at the time of the Reformation. It is the best way for it to spread in any land.”⁵⁴ I am looking forward to the time when Israel will be converted in one day as Isaiah 66:8 promises. There will be a mass baptism on that day that should be exhilarating. So this passage is very relevant to the Great Commission.

The second reason this is relevant is the lessons for individuals are the same for circumcision and baptism. And that makes sense. If baptism replaces circumcision, then there is much we can learn here.

Before I dive into this chapter, let me quickly outline the parallels between circumcision and baptism. Most of you have heard these before, but let me summarize them briefly anyway.

Baptism Replaces Circumcision and the Lord’s Supper Replaces Passover

First parallel: Everyone agrees baptism is the sign of entrance into the covenant, right? And everyone agrees the same was true of circumcision. You can’t read Genesis 17 any other way.

Second parallel: No unbaptized person could take the Lord’s Supper. Well, the same is true of circumcision. Turn with me to Exodus 12. Exodus 12 is a passage giving detailed instructions on the Passover observance. Look at verse 44:

But every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it.

The corporate aspect of circumcision extended to all who were in the household. But notice that it was the prerequisite to Passover. Look at verse 48:

And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it.

Until a Gentile became a Jew and was circumcised he could not be admitted. Now that is important. Keep that fact in mind.

And we have the same thing here in Joshua. Circumcision comes before Passover. For forty years (actually 38) these people have been unable to eat of the Passover and receive its blessings. (They were able to partake the first two years.) That shows you the corporate power of the parents’ sins. It affected everyone.

Another parallel: Baptism is a sign of faith and justification. But so is circumcision. Turn to Romans 4:11. You will find that every single thing that baptism signifies, circumcision signified in the Old Testament. “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also” (Rom. 4:11). Both circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament were the sign of justification by faith alone.

Another parallel: Over and over the uncircumcised were called unclean and circumcision was treated as a sign of spiritual cleansing from defilement. But so is baptism. Acts 22:16 says, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” It was a sign of God’s cleansing.

1 Corinthians 7:14 says the same. It says, “otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.”

Circumcision in this passage is said to be a sign of death to the world and entrance into a new life. The reproach of Egypt is wiped away. They are no longer identified with the world, but with God. Romans 6:3-4 says the same thing about baptism.

Circumcision represents the inner regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in several passages. For example, Jeremiah 4:4 says, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.” The outward is a sign of the need for the inward work of the Spirit. Well, 1 Peter 3:21 addresses the cleansing of our hearts: the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is what water baptism symbolizes. Colossians 2:11-12 says baptism of the heart corresponds to circumcision of the heart.

Well, with that as a background, let’s look at the passage. I think this passage gives some ammunition to missiologists who are promoting the covenantal people movement model. Donald McGavran says, “One of the curious facts about People Movements is that they have seldom been sought or desired… Most People Movements have actually been resisted by the leaders of the Church and mission where they started… Nevertheless, despite a certain degree of repression, movements did occur… Those People Movements which did occur were seldom really understood. The way of corporate decision was obscured by the Western preference for individual decision.”⁵⁵

Some of the primary objections have been 1) are they believing for sociological reasons or because they have truly been regenerate. It later proves to be true regeneration in the vast majority of the cases, but that is a fear. 2) Will there be a pure church? People are afraid of rapid growth. It turns out there are just as many or just as few nominal Christians in People Movements as there are in Western Individualistic churches. So let’s quickly look at a few principles in this chapter that can help to sort this all out.

The Sign of Circumcision

Evidence that faith and grace must always precede circumcision

We already looked at the first principle related to circumcision in chapters 3-4. That whole section shows the incredible character of their faith. So principle number one was that evidence of faith and grace always had to be present before circumcision was given; before the sign of the covenant is applied. The crossing of the Jordan in verse 1 was a demonstration of their faith according to the New Testament. In the New Testament the Ethiopian asks if he can be baptized. Peter’s answer is, “If you believe with all your heart, you may” (Acts 8:37). We believe that profession of faith must precede a family’s being brought into the covenant. So Joshua 5:1 shows their public identification with God by faith.

Is this the only time that requirement was given? No. Look at verse 2. “At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” We’ll deal in a moment with why God would not let them circumcise their children while in the wilderness. But 40 years before there was a mass circumcision, and it was based on the profession of faith of the Israelites. In Exodus 4 Moses is really concerned that the Israelites will not believe. God gives them a message and miracles, and verse 5 gives the reason: “that they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Verse 8 says, “Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.” But God isn’t guaranteeing even that will produce genuine faith in all. He says in the next verse: “And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land.” And verse 31 gives the conclusion, what Moses witnessed: “So the people believed; and when they heard the LORD had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.” So the people believed. Faith preceded that circumcision. And the reason I bring this up is that there is incredible skepticism in the West over people movements. We tend to think it is a nominal Christianity rather than a vibrant, genuine Christianity. Now that sometimes happens. It happened in Exodus 4. But that’s not the norm. And skeptics who visit these tribes are thunderstruck. One missiologist said, “We stress this [and he was talking about the powerful Christianity among the Karen. “We stress this] because it is a mistake to assume that People Movement Christians, merely because they have come to the Christian faith in chains of families, must inevitably be nominal Christians. Such an assumption is usually based on prejudice, not fact…. People movements in themselves do not encourage the production of nominal Christians.”⁵⁶ We believe in the need for faith. We don’t baptize the families of anyone who has not expressed faith. But let’s balance this with the next point.

Only God knows the sincerity of a person’s profession of faith

The second principle is that only God knows the sincerity of a person’s profession of faith. The previous generation had been circumcised because of their identification with God, but verse 6 shows that God rejected them, and verse 9 identified them with Egypt, with the world. They had had a false faith. One of the arguments that is used against infant baptism is that we must maintain purity in the church by ensuring that people have a genuine profession of faith first. But no one has been able to do that in the history of the church. Baptists have no fewer hypocrites than we do. Even Peter was fooled by the testimony of Simon the Sorcerer according to Acts 8. Peter has the record for having the fastest apostasy in history. Within the same hour that Simon the Sorcerer was baptized, Acts 8 says he apostatized. Looking at people’s profession of faith is no guarantee of their election. There were evidences of faith in Exodus 4-30 and even waiting to test the genuineness of their faith like many modern legalists have done is no guarantee. Turn with me to Hebrews 4 to see what God’s opinion of that generation was. They had temporal faith, but lacked saving faith. Hebrews 4:1-2. “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard.” 1 Corinthians 10:5 says that even though they partook of Passover, “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” Hebrews says they did not believe the Gospel. 1 Corinthians says God was not pleased with them. Numbers 14:23 says, “they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.” They had rejected the Lord. So outward profession of faith is no guarantee in any church that the profession is one of genuine faith. Read John 2 the last few verses some time and you will see this in the New Testament. It says, “many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not believe in them because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” Their belief was not a saving belief. If you have grown up in Baptist circles like I have, you need to resist the notion that examinations of people’s professions of faith need to be longer and more stringent and that profession of faith is the be all and end all of having purity. That concept is the bedrock of Baptist ecclesiology: they say they have a believers-only church because they want a pure church. So principle number 2 is profession of faith is no guarantee of purity. Even Moses and Peter had bad experiences with hypocrites.

Purity is important

The third principle is: purity is still important. God has always been concerned about the purity of the church. Don’t believe for a moment that Baptists believe in purity of the church because they only allow membership after profession of faith and we don’t believe in purity because we allow believers and their children to be members. The issue is what method of purity has God authorized? God has not authorized us to exclude our children from the covenant. Every covenant God has ever had has always included the children. So how does God maintain purity?

First, when he admits families to the covenant, the parent must express faith and give evidence of trusting in Him. We’ve already looked at that, and God’s test of their faith in this chapter was a pretty healthy test of sincerity.

Second, there was discipline. I think this is the most important tool for purity in the church, and it is certainly the most neglected tool for purity in American churches. I think it is ironic that churches that pride themselves on being “believers-only churches” are filled with violations of God’s law without ever receiving discipline. I know churches in this city have musicians who are openly living in adultery and other open sin, have youth group leaders living in other forms of sin, and certainly have families who are living in all kinds of sin without fear of discipline. I don’t care how much you talk about profession of faith (something we believe in), if you don’t believe in discipline, you will not have a pure and a healthy church. That is God’s authorized means.

And I want you to notice how the discipline was administered. The children come under discipline when parents abandon the faith. It wasn’t just the parents who were disciplined. That may seem unfair, but it is Biblical. This chapter is the first time since 38 years previous in Numbers 9:5 that all the Israelites participated in the Passover. That was year two of their wilderness wandering, and in the first two years they had many other kinds of communion meals. But once the parents rejected God, they were excluded from the feast, the children right along with the adults.

The second aspect of discipline is shown in verses 2-8; their children no longer had the privilege of circumcision. If you look at verse 9 you will see God was treating the children as if they were Egyptians; pagans, members of the world and not members of the church. It was only at this point that the reproach of Egypt is rolled away. That was a horrible punishment to bear, yet bear it they did. Just as God takes the children of believers into the church, God excludes the children of apostates from the church. It is a covenantal issue. If you have at least one believing parent, the children can stay. Now that has huge implications on whether you approach parents or children.

So principle number 1, evidence of faith must precede administration of baptism to the family.

Principle number 2: only God knows whether a person’s profession of faith is genuine or not. We aren’t allowed to read hearts. We admit people to the church based on objective testimony, not subjective reading of the heart.

Principle three is that purity is very important to the church, but church discipline is God’s authorized means of maintaining purity. You give up discipline and you have given up everything.

Circumcision was a sign of admittance to the church, not to the nation.

But the fourth principle is that circumcision was a sign of admittance to the church, not to the nation. Those who oppose infant baptism often admit the evidence for baptism replacing circumcision is overwhelming. They don’t try to deny that. Instead they try to say the New Testament is narrower than the Old Testament. They say in the Old Testament that circumcision was a sign of entrance into church and the nation whereas in the New Testament the national aspect is stripped away and now it is only a sign of entrance into the church. These books opposing infant baptism insist that faith was not required for circumcision. And in this way they try to get around infant baptism. They say infant circumcision was related to the nation, not to church membership.

But there are several problems with that theory: The first problem is that this chapter shows the exact opposite. It shows these millions of uncircumcised men had been excluded from the Passover, but not from the nation. It shows that they had been barred from the sign of admission to the church, but they are still treated as Israelites with all the privileges of Israelite citizenship. You didn’t have to be circumcised to be an Israelite citizen, but you sure did have to be to partake of Passover or any other church benefits.

And for that matter, they were an Israelite nation before they were circumcised under Moses 40 years before. During the 400 years in Egypt God speaks of them as being Israel, there were elders of Israel and citizens of Israel. Yet it was not until they were circumcised and partake of Passover in Exodus 12 that God speaks of them as a congregation. There is a difference between the two. When a person became ceremonially unclean he was cut off from the congregation, but he was still a citizen of Israel. And when he was cleansed with baptism he was readmitted to the congregation.

In fact, when you study it out, their objection doesn’t even fit the earlier evidence under Abraham. Long before there was a nation, circumcision was given as a religious covenantal sign to Abraham.

And they were certainly a nation under God during the 40 years of wandering. Circumcision had nothing to do with their being a nation. We have already read in Exodus 12 that foreigners could get circumcised, enter the church, and partake of Passover even if they weren’t part of the nation. Israelites could be citizens of other nations and still be members of the church. Circumcision was purely a sign of membership in the church. And so there is no way that Baptists can get around the evidence for infant baptism. If (as many of them admit) baptism replaces circumcision, then without a divine warrant, we may not exclude the children of believers from the church.

Circumcision was done under authority

A fifth principle that we see is that circumcision was done under authority. There was a popular viewpoint advanced by InterVarsity Fellowship in the 1980s that said that both baptism and communion can be done within the family, or where people informally come together. It doesn’t have to be done in a church context.

But the only evidence for circumcision being done that way would be Abraham. I have heard people say that Abraham performed that rite as a father. But that is not true. Abraham had a covenantal group that was far bigger than his family. How large was His family when Circumcision was instituted? It included Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and himself. That’s it. Yet by God’s mandate he circumcised at least 320 people. That is the 318 armed servants who rescued Lot, himself, and Ishmael. And of course, the number was probably must larger than that. It was not a private affair. All of these men were under the spiritual leadership of Abraham. And the same is true here.

Whereas normally there was a strict separation between church and state, because Joshua (whose Greek spelling is Jesus) was a type or prefiguration of Jesus, he functioned in both realms. And so Verse 2 says, “At that time the LORD said to Joshua, make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” Now he delegated some of that job to priests and synagogue leaders. Normally circumcision was done by a rabbi. Verse 3 says, “So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of foreskins.”

Circumcision was applied to nations and other corporate groups

The sixth principle is that circumcision applied to nations and other corporate groups. When God gave His covenant of circumcision to Abraham in Genesis 17, three times God includes foreign nations in that covenant. Three times. In Genesis 34 Jacob is deceived by his sons who want to kill the citizens of Hamor, but in his innocence he illustrates this principle. He calls them to become Jews, to get circumcised and to worship the true God. On that condition, they could intermarry. And of course, the whole city does that.

Chua Wee Hian in an essay on “Evangelization of Whole Families” said, “Evangelizing whole families is the pattern of current missionary outreach…”⁵⁷ It is happening more and more.

Roy Shearer describe Korean growth as “repeated situations when heads of families returned to their clan villages and were successful in persuading their relatives and kinsmen to ‘turn from idols to serve the living God.’”⁵⁸ He points out those tribes were won through the family structure, not individualism.

Chua Wee Hian writes, “At times it is difficult for individualistic Westerners to realize that in many ‘face to face’ societies religious decisions are made corporately.”⁵⁹ There is no getting around it. There is a corporate embracing of God’s covenant in this passage.

The individual is not lost in the corporate

But seventh, the individual is not lost in the corporate. Verses 2 and 3 show each male being circumcised. It wasn’t enough for a tribal chief to make profession of faith and to get circumcised on behalf of everyone else. Each family had to make its own painful step of faith. People movements are not like Islamic countries in North Africa where everyone is forced to embrace Islam, or where a tribal chief makes a decision and everyone has to go along with it. We are talking about God sovereignly moving in bringing genuine conversion to a mass of individuals.

Entering into the covenant was painful

The eighth principle is that God ensured entering into the covenant was painful. Verse 8 says, “So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed.” It cost each man to come into the faith. And the People Movements typically find intense persecution when they come to faith. They have counted the cost. Again, not a nominal Christianity.

This is a work of grace, not a sociological phenomenon

The ninth principle is that God’s grace produced this, not man’s ingenuity. It says in verse 7: “So Joshua circumcised their sons whom He raised up in their place.” No one but God can produce a People Movement. It is a mysterious moving of God’s Spirit. Donald McGavran says, “We dare not think of People Movements to Christ as merely social phenomena. True, we can account for some of the contributing factors which have brought them about; but there is so much that is mysterious and beyond anything we can ask or think, so much that is a product of religious faith, and so much evident working of divine Power, that we must confess that People Movements are gifts of God.”⁶⁰

Circumcision brought them into the protection of the covenant.

The last principle is that circumcision brought these people into the protection of the covenant and into innumerable blessings which follow in these chapters. When we fail to baptize our children, we are excluding them from many of these privileges. I don’t want to take the time to develop all the blessings that came to these Israelites. I am going to assume that you believe that. But let me end by giving a few of the benefits our children have when they are in the covenant that no children of unbelievers have. There is clearly a difference. I’ve got eleven written down. Let me just give you the first four.

The blessings of circumcision parallel the many blessings of baptism

1. Christ blessed the covenant children in Luke 18.
2. Covenant children have angels assigned to them according to Matthew 18:10. These angels are spoken of as watchers or guardians in Daniel.
3. The closeness of Christ’s identity with covenant children can beseen in His statement, “whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me” (Matt. 18:5).
4. God promises that in the New Covenant He will pour out His blessings not only on us, but on our offspring (Is. 44:3; 40:11).
5. The New Testament never addresses the children of believers as heathen, but always as church members or covenant children (Col. 3:20; Eph. 6:1ff). Thus, children are expected to grow in grace. Parents are expected to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
6. Though it is clear that our infants are depraved and sinful from conception (Psalm 51:5; 58:31) and thus justly deserve spiritual and physical death (Rom. 6:23), believing parents can lay claim to the many promises of God’s blessing upon generation after generation. There are at least five cases infants who were saved before or shortly after birth: John (Luke 1:41,44), Jeremiah (Jer 1:4), David (Ps. 22:9-10), David’s Son (2 Sam. 12:15-23) and Jereboam’s son (1 Kings 14:13). Likewise there are many examples like Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15 notice the Greek word Brevfouß or baby) which imply that there was never a time when they didn’t know and love the Lord.
7. The representational principle of parents has always held true. Adam’s posterity are judged because of Adam’s sin. But God’s grace made possible the reversal of that on a familial basis. The family of Noah was spared because of the faith of Noah (Gen. 6:8,18; 7:1; Heb. 11:7). God promised to bless Abraham’s descendants because of Abraham’s faith, and even said that through the coming Messiah “all the families of the earth would be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; Acts 3:25). Thus it is natural for the New Testament to point to the example of Abraham when dealing with family salvation. For example, it was because of Zaccheus’s faith that Christ said, “today is salvation come to this household because he also is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9). Zaccheus as the covenantal head of the home brings salvation to the home because he had just become a son of Abraham. Every time a person comes to Christ in the New Testament period he becomes “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). We are heirs to the family promises given to Abraham! And thus in the very next verse (Galatians 4:1) the “child” is also said to be an “heir.” Thus, God blesses children over and over because of the faith of parents (Luke 1:41,44). In Matthew 9:18-19,23-26 the daughter of the Jewish official is healed because of the father’s faith (not the faith of the daughter). The same is true of the healing of the epileptic son (Matt. 17:14-18), and of the raising of the daughter to life (Luke 7:11-17), and the healing of the Nobleman’s son (John 4:46-54). It was expected that where faith was present in the parents, the whole family would worship and rejoice in God (Deut. 12:7,12; 14:26; Joel). And this principle was prophesied to continue into New Testament times when all families of the pagan nations would worship before God (Psalm 22:27). Thus the promise given by Paul in Acts 16:31 is no empty promise: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” That is God’s pattern. We should never see our children as being no better off than the children of unbelievers.
8. The children of believers are said to be “holy.” In other words, they have been set apart by the covenant for God’s special working (Ezra 9:2; Mal. 2:15; Is. 6:13; 1 Cor. 7:14). “And did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? [speaking here of a spiritual unity in marriage] And why one? He seeks holy offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce” (Mal. 2:15-16a).
9. Thus these children continue to be heirs of the Abrahamic covenant (Galatians 4:1 - “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child…”). Nowhere is the child of unbelievers said to be an heir of the Abrahamic covenant. Furthermore, it is arbitrary to say that the “heirs” of Galatians 3:26-29 have the right to be baptized, but not the “heir” in the very next verse (Galatians 4:1). It is of the very nature of the Abrahamic covenant to include children, and this Abrahamic covenant was extended to “all the families of the earth” (Acts 3:25). On what basis can an “heir” of the Abrahamic covenant (4:1) be excluded from the covenant sign?
10. The covenant is made with children even before they are born (Deut. 29:10,11,13-15,29 with Acts 2:39,33).
11. Even when the parents later apostatize, the children that have been brought into covenant are said to be born unto God (i.e. they aren’t ours or Satan’s). “They have sacrificed their children whom they bore to Me, passing them through the fire, to devour them” (Ezek. 23:37). “Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?” (Ezek. 16:20-21).