If you haven’t read Pastor Randy Booth’s wonderful book on infant baptism, Children of the Promise, you should. It is full of pastoral warmth without being sentimental. He is clear without being cliched. He covers all the bases in less than 200 pages. He is not mean to credo-baptists. Here is his summary of the case for infant baptism, which he gives at the beginning of the book.
- Covenant Theology. Throughout the Bible, God relates to his people by way of a covenant of grace. Covenant theology provides the basic framework for rightly interpreting Scripture.
- Continuity of the Covenant of Grace. The Bible teaches one and the same way of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments, despite some different outward requirements.
- Continuity of the People of God. Since there is one covenant of grace between God and man, there is one continuous people of God (the church) in the Old and New Testaments.
- Continuity of the Covenant Signs. Baptism is the sign of the covenant in the New Testament, just as circumcision was the sign of the covenant in the Old Testament.
- Continuity of Households. Whole households are included in God’s redemptive covenant.