This diversity is nowhere more evident than in the ceremonies of worship. New Testament worship presents us with a most striking contrast with Old Testament ordinances. This can be illustrated by looking at the Lord’s Supper, which finds a counterpart in the Old Testament Passover. The great spiritual truth of redemption by blood is figured in the Passover, but it is somewhat obscured beneath an outward and formal atmosphere. Then, too, the ceremony mixes the figures of personal redemption and national deliverance. Even those who had no acquaintance with spiritual redemption, observed it. This they should have done; for their national life arose from the historic event remembered. Very young children came to the Passover as participants that, by it, they might ask the significance and as they grew older, come to understand the redemption figures. (cf. Exodus 12:2427, etc.) In the New Testament, things are quite different. I Corinthians 11:23-30 gives instruction for the most formal ceremony of the New Covenant. Here very young children must not come.Here Chantry’s contentions are not mistaken, but simply wrong.
A passover meal would include roast lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread (Ex 12:8)-- hardly Gerber's baby food. And the children would be taught the meaning of the sacrament from the earliest days. At each observance, the head of the family would explain to the children the significance of the meal, of Yahweh's deliverance of His covenant people (Ex. 12:26ff.). By the time a child would be old enough to take full part in the act, such children would have the knowledge to discern the meaning of the sacrament, even if at a still young age. Children of all ages participated in the passover by listening and learning, but full participation was only for older covenant children. Even in the old covenant, the sacrament of spiritual nourishment was not given for some time after the initiatory sacrament, and then only with teaching. -- Why Paedocommunion is a Bad Idea: Expanding a Blessing or Bringing down a Curse? Gregory Johnson
Under the Renewed Covenant, a child is raised as a Covenant child, and taught the meaning of Christian Passover before they partake thereof. Just as under the Ancient Covenant, the children were raised as Covenant children, and taught the meaning of
Pesach before they partook thereof.
Again, Chantry is faulting Presbyterians for our Covenantal consistency. He ends up giving us an unintended compliment.
The Covenant is Visible and One.
Then, there are a number of exegetical flaws in the paedobaptist theology. Many have reasoned thus: "Infants of believers were circumcised in the Old Covenant. Therefore, infants of believers should be baptized in the New." Though in Abraham’s case faith preceded circumcision of his children, this cannot be said to be the rule of the Old Covenant rite. There were times when faith in the subjects of circumcision or in their parents was all but ignored. In the time of Joshua, an entire nation was circumcised in a day. There was no concern for personal election or personal faith.Likewise, in the Visible Church, there has been many an age in which it could realistically be argued that there were more Tares, than Wheat. So what?
God will know His Own.
It is also said that just as baptism is a sign of heirship to the spiritual promises of grace in the New Covenant, circumcision was a sign of heirship to the same spiritual promises in the Old. This is only partially true. Baptism is a sign of spiritual blessing in Christ and only that…. Baptism has no merely earthly significance. There are no blessings figured in it that can be conceived of apart from an experience of grace…. Romans 9 discusses Abraham’s immediate, physical offspring. Some were of the flesh; some of the spirit. There was a personal election within the family election. Abraham could not look upon his own immediate seed as heirs of the promises. "They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." (v. 8). How can believers today lean upon the promise to Abraham which is clearly interpreted in the New Testament and find for themselves a greater expectation for their children than Abraham had a right to? The New Testament is not silent about this seed. It tells us they are believers alone!
And this is as true of adults, as of children. There are indubitably millions throughout history, baptized as adults, who enjoy no spiritual union with Christ.
But again…. So what? God will know His Own. Schlissel again:
It seems to me that the Reformed faith has been the most faithful of all traditions in fairly treating all of what the Scripture has to say on the subject of baptism. On one side stands the Roman Catholic church which believes that the sacrament is efficacious in itself, conferring the grace of salvation, the subjects being reborn by means of it. On the other side we find our Baptistic friends who believe that baptism is to be administered only after a credible profession of faith. Often unnoticed by people examining this question is the fact that Romanists and Baptists share an error in common: both assume the necessity of a one for one correspondence between the number of persons baptized and the number regenerated. The Baptists try to insure this correspondence by requiring regeneration prior to administration, Catholics by imagining that regeneration occurs during administration.According to the Reformed view, however, the efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered. (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXIX, paragraph VI) Moreover (and this is vital), the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Spirit to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in His appointed time. (ibid)
Thus, our concern in the administration of baptism is not to ascertain the regenerated status of the candidate, but simply to ascertain if, according to Scripture, he is lawfully to be regarded as a member of the covenant which baptism signifies and seals.
The Covenant is Visible and One.