The Sign of God’s Covenant of Grace
Part One
“The Sign of Circumcision”
Notes from a sermon given by Dan Thompson on November 30, 2003
To understand the meaning of baptism, you have to go back to the Old Testament, to the story of Abraham. Even though God had given him a clear promise of salvation, God graciously added to his verbal promise a visible sign to seal the truth of that promise to Abraham’s heart. Baptism, in the New Testament, is the sign of God’s covenant promises of salvation to those who look to Christ Jesus in faith. But the meaning of baptism is rooted in the meaning of the sign of circumcision that God gave to Abraham. So we need to understand what the giving of this sign was all about.
When I first met Margaret she had an engagement ring on her hand. I assumed she was spoken for. After all, when you meet a girl wearing an engagement ring, you don’t ask her out! An engagement ring MEANS something! But as I got to know her, I found out that engagement ring was a family heirloom. Later, when we got engaged, even though she already had one engagement ring, I bought another engagement ring. When she opened the box and put the ring on her finger, what was being communicated? This ring carried the message: “You are set apart to me! I intend to marry you!” Did she really need an engagement ring? After all, those things are expensive!! I said I would marry her - wasn’t my word enough? Even though she believed my promise, there is something wonderful in having a sign that reminds you constantly of the promise that has been given to you. It adds confirmation to the verbal promise.
When rings are exchanged in a wedding ceremony, as the man puts the ring on his bride’s finger, he says, “This ring I give you as a token and pledge of my constant faith and abiding love.” The ring adds no new promise to the vows he has just made. But it is given as a visible sign and seal of the vows made. From that time on, she wears on her body a visible symbol of his promises to her. And if she ever begins to wonder - “did He really promise to love me and bind himself to me, no matter what happens?” - the ring she wears seals to her heart the promises that were made. She looks at the ring and remembers that He has made promises….He is her husband and she is his bride! They are joined together in a covenant bond (at least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work)!
Something very similar is happening in Genesis 17. God gave Abram promises (Genesis 12). He repeated those promises when Abram said, “But how can I know for certain?” God graciously enacted the cutting of a covenant to confirm what he had said. He had Abram bring animals, cut them in half, and then God passed between the cut pieces, symbolically saying, “May I be cut apart like this if I fail to do what I have promised!” There was no more dramatic way that God could have shown his intention to do what He had promised!
But as the years passed, do you suppose Abram might have wondered from time to time, “How do I really know God is there? What if I imagined all that? Maybe it was just a dream! Maybe the things I’m believing are an illusion - an invention of my own wishful thinking!” Though God had confirmed his promises (Genesis 15) it is clear that God wanted to give him something even more tangible and permanent; something that would serve as a sign of His promise to Abraham; something that would also serve as a sign of Abraham being set apart to walk before God in faith.
The core promise of the covenant is that God will bless Abraham and be his God and the God of his descendants after him. God had clearly promised these blessings. But given the nature of the human heart (our tendency to forget, to question, to doubt what God has said) God provides a visible, physical, tangible confirmation of His word so Abraham’s faith may be strengthened.
Genesis 17:9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the SIGN OF THE COVENANT between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner – those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Most of us know very little about circumcision. We think, “that was an Old Testament thing! It doesn’t apply to us, so why look at it closely?” I’m convinced that you have to take the time to look closer, because understanding this will help you understand better how you relate to God and how God confirms His promises to you!
First, you need to understand that this was not the beginning of the practice of circumcision in human history. Other people groups practiced circumcision. It was considered a sign of royalty in Egypt, so Egyptian priests were circumcised. And it was done in other cultures, though not in the land of Canaan where Abraham was now living. God took a symbol that Abraham would have recognized as something from the realm of religion and used it to express higher truths and principles. God made it the distinctive badge of his covenant relationship. And because it wasn’t practiced in Canaan, it became immediately a religious symbol that created a distinction between Abraham’s household and the people around them.
I. QUESTIONS ABOUT CIRCUMCISION:
A. WHY DID GOD ADD A VISIBLE SIGN TO THE PROMISES HE HAD ALREADY MADE?
Signs always point to something! They are visible expressions of the truth of God’s Word! For example, in the book of Exodus, just before the people of Israel were brought out of Egypt, God visited one last plague on Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. God had Moses tell Pharaoh that the oldest male child in every household in Egypt, from the house of Pharaoh on down, would die that night. If you’ve seen the movie versions (for example, the movie “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner - remember the fog that creeps in and the wailing that rises up as people discover their sons are dead?) you know the story. At that time, God told Moses and the people of Israel to mark their houses with blood. As the angel of death went through all of Egypt, he would PASS OVER their houses and spare the lives of their sons! And God told them to set this up as an annual feast – an annual reminder of what had happened. It would serve as a sign, mirroring a deep, spiritual truth that needed confirmation in people’s minds and hearts: “we are spared death only by a covering that God provides. God graciously spared our forefathers. God continues graciously to cover us, to shield us from his just anger against sin through a substitutionary sacrifice, a lamb that dies in our place!”
This sign would have had no lasting value and would quickly have become a meaningless superstition if explanations were not given every year. The youngest child was to ask, “What does this mean?” It was to be explained again. When the sign is joined to the promises given by God, it confirms the promises and seals the truth of those promises to the heart of the believing person! Passover was not just an annual festival (like Thanksgiving is for us: a human custom, something that has developed into a cultural holiday!). Passover was instituted by God, established by Him for the purpose of confirming His Word in the hearts of His people. His promises are firm. They are worthy of trust. But human faith is weak. Unless it is propped up on all sides, faith will wobble and waver! So God, in His infinite kindness, lowers Himself to our human capacity and leads us to trust Him by means of physical, visible signs that reflect His promises!
Circumcision was to serve as that kind of confirming sign to Abraham and to his whole household and to those who came after him.
B. WHY WOULD GOD CHOOSE THIS SIGN?
He doesn’t explain his reasons for the sign here. But consider God’s person and character: God never acts without purpose. Therefore, I have to assume circumcision was the best way for God to communicate the truths He wanted confirmed in Abraham’s mind and heart. It was not a random decision; something pulled out of thin air and pressed into service as the sign of the covenant! To serve as a sign of God’s covenant promise, circumcision would have to illustrate the truth that was stated plainly in the words of the covenant promise. The same things that were promised by God verbally were being illustrated in the sign.
What was the promise? “I will bless you: I will be a God to you and to your descendants after you for the generations to come! I will give you a land. I will make you into a great nation. Through your offspring the whole world will be blessed.” Ultimately, the promise was that Abraham would be blessed through One who would be born into his family line. When God said, “I will bless you,” what did that mean? To bless someone is the opposite of cursing that person. To experience the curse of God is to be cut off from the face of God, to have God turn his back on you, to suffer His just wrath against you as a sinner. To experience His blessing, on the other hand, is to have God’s smile of approval rest on you; to see God in the end; to be restored to fellowship with God (being completely reconciled to God!). Since we are sinners, to be reconciled to God requires atonement or redemption: some way must be provided for sinners to be brought back to God. To be redeemed, our sins must be taken away! We need a righteousness from God if we are going to have fellowship with God, who is holy! So when God promised to bless Abraham, the covenant promise was much larger than just God’s doing some nice things for him like giving him a land and children. It is the promise of salvation by grace! Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness!
In New Testament terms, he was justified before God as He believed God’s promise!
The sign, then, must be understood as confirming this promise in a visible, physical, tangible manner!
C. WHAT DID IT SYMBOLIZE?
If the promise of the covenant was salvation by grace, then the sign of the covenant symbolized and reflected that promise in some way. In the Bible, signs are always reflections (mirrors) of the plain, clear teaching of God’s Word. So what truths did circumcision reflect?
- Circumcision symbolized inclusion in the covenant community.
If salvation is by God’s grace through faith in His provision of redemption, and that is the only way anyone can ever be saved, then there is no salvation apart from the covenant community. Belonging to this community is part of God’s blessing! Those receiving this outward sign belong to the covenant community in which these promises of grace have been made known. (What about women who didn’t receive the sign of circumcision? I’ll answer that more fully later. But for now, they were included in the covenant by their relationship to their fathers and husbands.)
- Circumcision symbolized the connection of parents and children.
SIN is passed on to the race in the human process of procreation. It’s not just that individual people are sinners because they do sinful things. The whole human race is polluted by sin. Sinful parents can’t produce holy children! They always give birth to sinful offspring. It’s not that sex is sinful, but the fruit of the natural sexual union is children who are born with a corrupt, sinful, fallen human nature! What is sinful can’t produce what is holy without God’s intervention! God promised to bless the world through Abraham’s offspring. But because Abraham is a sinner, Abraham can only produce more sinners, unless GOD intervenes.
- Circumcision dramatically symbolized the blessings and curses of the covenant.
- Cutting off is the symbol of judgment. It was a token sign of the death - the shedding of blood - that sin requires! You see that in verse 14: the one who was not circumcised (who did not come under God’s blessing) was to be cut off from the people (cursed, cut off from God’s presence!). The curse is symbolized in the cutting off of a portion of the man’s flesh.
- But it also symbolizes the blessing of the covenant: God intervenes! He removes the uncleanness of sin by His grace so believers can become His people! To be reconciled to a holy God, one must be purified; the uncleanness of man must be dealt with. It is God who does surgery on our hearts! Only God can make us clean! (Remember, circumcision is a symbolic thing, intended to teach spiritual truths. The Bible never suggests that the human body is evil. It is the whole person that is defiled by sin. In a token act, part of the body is cut off, representing the removal of what is worthless, so the person can be made clean.) God will cleanse the heart of a sinner by His grace and through the internal working of His Spirit.
- Circumcision was a sign of faith
“Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer” (Deuteronomy 10:16). To be circumcised in heart is to repent and believe God; to be cleansed from sin’s pollution by God’s grace. The command to circumcise your heart can’t mean “make yourself pure!” No one can do that! If we are to be made clean, God must purify our hearts. By faith, you look to God for the righteousness you need to be reconciled to Him!
- Ultimately, circumcision represents Christ!
In a shadowy way, circumcision pointed to the redeeming work of Jesus. Christ is, after all, the core of the Covenant promise, the one through whom God would bless Abraham and all who share his faith. And Christ’s atoning work involved his becoming a curse in place of the redeemed: He was “cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken” (Isaiah 53:8). Christ is the Seed, the promised Offspring, through whom all these blessings would come. So if circumcision is a sign of the covenant promise, then Christ is represented in the sign!
In a veiled and shadowy way, something of the uniqueness of Christ’s birth and his person may be pictured in circumcision. The promised Savior would not come through the ordinary, natural process of generation. Circumcision taught the truth that sinful people produce sinful children. Sin is passed from one generation to the next in an organic way (children don’t just become sinners because they see the bad example of those around them – they inherit a sinful nature from their parents). But the Seed, the Offspring of Abraham through whom the world would be blessed would be sinless by God’s intervention.
Isaac, the first child of promise, was the fitting type of such a covenant. In the peculiarities connected with his entrance into life, he was a sign to all coming ages of what the covenant required and sought; - not begotten till Abraham himself bore the symbol of nature’s purification, nor born till it was evident the powers of nature must have been miraculously [made alive] for the purpose; so that in his very conception and birth Isaac was emphatically a child of God. But in being so, he was the exact type of what the covenant properly aimed at, and what its expressive symbol betokened, viz., a spiritual seed, in which the divine and human, grace and nature, should meet together in producing true subjects and channels of blessing. But its actual representation – the one complete and perfect embodiment of all it symbolized and sought – was the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the divine and human met from the first, not in cooperative merely, but in organic union; and consequently the result produced was a Being free from all taint of corruption, holy, harmless, undefiled, the express image of the Father, the very righteousness of God. He alone fully realized the conditions of the blessing exhibited in the covenant, and was qualified to be in the largest sense the seed-corn of a harvest of blessing for the whole field of humanity (Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture, p. 312).
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You say, “But Abraham didn’t know about Jesus! Genesis doesn’t clearly spell out this kind of understanding on Abraham’s part.” Maybe not, but Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day!” Jesus said Abraham understood about Him, looked for His coming, and was filled with joy through anticipation of the coming Redeemer!
D. WHY TAKE IT AS ANYTHING MORE THAN JUST A SIGN OF NATIONAL IDENTITY?
“Maybe all circumcision was intended to do was mark all those who belong to Israel as a kind of BADGE of national identity. Maybe it was just a way of setting Israel apart from the surrounding nations.”
Certainly circumcision did serve to distinguish the people of Israel from those around them who didn’t practice circumcision. You find later, for example, David saying of Goliath, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the Living God?” That circumcision was misunderstood by many, maybe even most, of the natural, physical descendants of Abraham is plainly evident as you read the Bible. They thought they were right with God just because they bore on their bodies the sign of God’s covenant! They argued this point with Jesus: “We are the children of Abraham!” (see John 8). But Jesus told them if they didn’t have the faith of Abraham, they were not his true offspring! They had the sign, but did not have the reality of what was symbolized (just like you can wear a wedding ring and not be married at all – you might wear the outward sign of marriage, but not really be married!). The outward sign is not the same as the substance symbolized. To think the sign saves automatically is a terrible misunderstanding of the sign!
That it was more than a mere badge of national identity is clear in passages like Romans 2:28-29: “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart; by the Spirit, not by the written code.…”
The people of Israel had no right to the blessings and benefits of the covenant (God being their God, they being God’s people) just because they had been outwardly circumcised. This is where American Christians get things so wrong regarding the nation of Israel! Too often we think of circumcision just as the sign of being Jewish. That’s not what it meant! God’s promises and blessings were given not just to the natural offspring of Abraham but to those who have the faith of Abraham! “We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil. 3:3).
E. WOULD ABRAHAM HAVE UNDERSTOOD THE MEANING OF THE SIGN?
Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day!” And in the book of Hebrews we are told that he looked for a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. The land of Canaan was not an end in itself. It represented an eternal homeland - the new heaven and new earth that is coming! Abraham understood this. Clearly the Bible’s own interpretation of Abraham’s understanding gives him credit for understanding more than is explained in the pages of Genesis. You have to remember that Genesis doesn’t give us all the details! As you look through the rest of Scripture, you’ll find that God has never given a sign without linking it to the plain teaching of His Word - otherwise, the sign would be meaningless! So I have to assume Abraham understood the meaning of the sign that is spelled out clearly in the rest of Scripture!
The outward putting away of the pollution of the sinful nature could never have symbolized the inward, purifying work of the Holy Spirit described in the New Testament if it had not first symbolized these things for Old Testament believers! Don’t break apart the continuity of the Old Testament and the New Testament by making circumcision nothing more than an outward sign of being part of the Jewish race.
If it did not have this rich meaning for Abraham, it would not have been a privilege and blessing for God to give this to him. If it did not point to Christ and to God’s grace in salvation, it would have been nothing more than an oppressive yoke; a burden, picturing man being bound to the promise to walk before God and be blameless (Genesis 17:1) without being given the promise of grace that would make it all possible! To be a sign of the covenant of promise, it had to represent for Abraham God’s promised blessings in salvation by grace, received through faith, apart from works.
F. HOW WOULD CIRCUMCISION SERVE AS A SEAL OF GOD’S COVENANT PROMISES?
Abraham “received the sign of circumcision, a SEAL of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11). Like wearing a wedding ring, circumcision would confirm God’s promises: “God cleanses me from sin; I am righteous in Him by His grace! I have engaged myself to belong to Him! He will provide a Redeemer who will pay the penalty for my sin!” Abraham’s circumcision would serve as a seal of the righteousness he had by faith. It confirmed to him that God counted him as clean in his sight. When Abraham obeyed God and circumcised himself, he did it because he believed God and trusted Him for that righteousness. The truth of God’s acceptance was confirmed through the sign. Christ’s work was set before him: the promised blessing, with all the richness of God’s grace poured out on sinners, would come through Christ. But just seeing this acted out would have been of no value to Abraham or his descendants unless what was symbolized was received by faith.
To use John Calvin’s illustration: No matter how much water may flow from a faucet, it will go down the drain and disappear unless the lid of the jar is opened to receive the water! The jar may be wet outside, but empty inside. The grace of God is communicated in God’s verbal promises. And the same promises are communicated in the sign of circumcision. But if a person’s heart is not open to receive it, the sign would do no good. The sign has no magic power in itself to give grace to the recipient. It becomes a means of grace (something that strengthens faith) when God’s Spirit confirms the truth that is symbolized to the heart of the believer. The sign announces and tells you again what God has promised. But it becomes a seal of God’s grace to you only as God’s Spirit confirms it to your mind and heart.
G. WHY IS IT CALLED AN EVERLASTING COVENANT?
“If it was everlasting, why aren’t people today required to be circumcised when they become believers? I don’t know everything about the New Testament but I do know that non-Jewish converts to Christianity were NOT required to undergo circumcision! “
The promise represented in the sign is everlasting! God will not go back on His Word. The symbol changed with the coming of Jesus: In him (Christ Jesus) you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done BY CHRIST, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ” (Colossians 2:11-13).
Your natural fallen condition is described as being uncircumcised in your sinful nature. When God joined you to Christ, when He made you alive with Christ (regeneration), you died to the condition you were in and were raised up as a new creation in Christ Jesus. God circumcised your heart. He cut off the deadness, the impurity, the defilement of your sinful nature as He united you to Christ. Your baptism is the outward sign of this inward work of God’s grace! Your baptism is your circumcision! The same promise, the same substance of the covenant blessing, is represented in your baptism! The promise has never changed! It is everlasting. But the outward sign has changed to a more fitting sign.
Consider this. Circumcision was the most fitting sign of the reality of God’s promises. Passing on seed was an important part of the sign, and pointed to how the promised blessing would come: The blessing would come in a person, a person who was clean and pure by God’s intervention. So when the promised child had come, and the promise no longer depended on seed passed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob…on down to Mary and Jesus. The outward sign no longer needed to be tied to the production of offspring until the promised offspring arrived. He had come! Now the promise would spread spiritually through the broader outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So there’s a new sign: the washing with water, symbolizing the pouring out of God’s Spirit who washes away the guilt and pollution of sin as He joins sinners to Christ. The New Testament sign has less of the distinctive recognition of the connection of child to parent in the promises of blessing. But the substance of the promise is exactly the same.
Baptism symbolizes the washing of new birth, cleansing from the pollution of sin, the cutting off of the sinful nature by the work of God’s Spirit, the redeeming work of Christ being applied to an individual. It is the New Testament sign of being included in the covenant community. Baptism signifies the same things symbolized in circumcision. So the covenant is everlasting. It doesn’t change. But the sign has changed.
H. WHOSE PROMISE DOES CIRCUMCISION REPRESENT - GOD’S OR ABRAHAM’S?
The answer is both. It is first of all, and primarily as sign of God’s promise of the blessings of salvation. But it is also a sign of Abraham’s commitment to God. In that sense, it symbolized Abraham’s faith. He believed what God promised and applied the symbol of God’s promises to his body! He wanted God to be His God. He wanted his family to be God’s people. In taking the sign to himself, it became a sign of his engagement to belong to the LORD!
I. WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BEING CIRCUMCISED ON THE EIGHTH DAY?
Was there any significance to the eighth day? I have read that this was the time when a baby’s blood would clot best. Was there any more to the reason for the eighth day than this? I don’t know. But I do know that giving this covenant sign to an infant, who is incapable of faith and repentance at eight days of age, puts the emphasis of the sign on God’s promise, not man’s commitment! In other religions, in Islam, for example, when a boy turned 13 his was circumcised as a sign of his entering manhood. He had come to the age of being able to make his own decisions. But applying the sign of circumcision at that point put the emphasis on the person’s religious initiatives - on man’s works rather than on God’s promises.
J. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ABRAHAM’S WHOLE HOUSEHOLD BEING CIRCUMCISED?
This is a beautiful truth: from the beginning, the covenant is not limited just to Abraham’s physical offspring!
The covenant blessings were available to all who were willing to come to God in His appointed way. All who embraced the promises of God were part of the covenant people and therefore entitled to the sign of the covenant! The sign was given to Abraham, Ishmael, and all the men and boys in his household (cf. chapter 14 – there were at least 318 trained men who were able to join him in the rescue of Lot. These were not his physical offspring). The blessings of salvation are open to all who look to God in faith for redemption.
SUMMARY: Circumcision was an outward sign that God used to seal to the heart and mind of a believer the promises of His Word - the promises of His love and mercy toward those who look to Him in faith for grace. It was given as an aid to faith. It was a sign of God’s grace toward the sinner and of the believer’s obligation to walk before God in faith and godliness. Circumcision was a visible sign of an invisible grace.
II. WHAT DOES CIRCUMCISION HAVE TO DO WITH US?
If you had your son circumcised when he was born, you didn’t do it out of a desire to keep this covenant God made with Abraham. You did it because you were convinced it was the best thing to do hygienically. We don’t require converts to Christianity to be circumcised. So what does circumcision have to do with us?
I suggest it has everything to do with us!
A. EVERYTHING SYMBOLIZED IN CIRCUMCISION IS SYMBOLIZED IN BAPTISM
You are a sinner, unclean before God, in need of washing.
You can’t make yourself clean. God has to do it.
God pours out his Spirit on you and washes away your sin.
God joins you to Christ. He counts Christ’s righteousness as yours!
God creates in you a clean heart, a new heart (what the Bible calls regeneration).
God gives you the gift of faith, by which you take hold of Christ and his righteousness!
God joins you to the covenant people. Baptism is the sign of belonging to the visible church!
Baptism doesn’t save you any more than circumcision ever saved anyone! It is a sign that mirrors the promises of God’s Word. It’s purpose is to confirm to your heart those promises and their reality, to seal to your conscience the truth that you belong to God. He is your God and you are His forever! Just as circumcision was a sign of Abraham’s commitment to belong to God, baptism is a sign of your commitment, your engagement to Christ! The promise is the same in both circumcision and baptism: God’s fatherly favor, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life for those who look to God in faith! The substance of what is signified is the same: new birth, God’s Spirit cleansing from sin and applying the righteousness of Christ to the individual. The only difference is in the outward ceremony - the form of the sign! Everything that is true of circumcision is true of baptism!
The challenge we face is simply to take the time and energy to think this through and understand it more clearly. We are so prone to think the Old Testament has little to do with us. We are too prone to understand our Christianity in private, individualistic terms. Too easily we misunderstand the purpose of circumcision and therefore fail to see the richness of the sign. And in doing these things, we misunderstand what was symbolized and sealed to us in our baptism!
IF you’re going to understand your baptism and appreciate it for what God gave it to be, you need to understand circumcision better! That’s the root of the sign of baptism!
You say, “But isn’t the important thing just what I believe about Jesus?” It is certainly true that your baptism doesn’t save you. But neither should you neglect something God has graciously given to strengthen your faith and to confirm in your heart the truth of His promises! To neglect any of the means of grace God has given is to impoverish your faith!
B. GOD GRACIOUSLY COMMUNICATES HIS PROMISE TO YOU IN WORD AND SIGN!
Your faith is often weak. You wonder, “How do I know I have a share in what God promised? How can I be sure God loves me?” The Lord’s Supper and baptism are signs and seals of God’s promises in His Covenant of Grace - the same covenant He established with Abraham. It has now come to fruition in Christ!
If you are married, you remember that in the wedding ceremony words were said and promises were made. But then the wedding rings were exchanged to signify and seal the truth of the promises to your hearts. In a similar way, the outward sign of baptism was given by God for your benefit. He knows the certainty of His promises. He doesn’t need reminding. But you do need reminding and confirmation to strengthen your faith. God loves you so much that He wants to drive the truth of His promises deep into your heart and soul. Through His Spirit, He seals to your heart the truth that you have a share in what Jesus accomplished in His life and death. | 
