In Reformed Covenant Theology, why does the covenant sign of circumcision pass away but the Abrahamic covenant of which it was the sign of does not?
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The Heidelberg Catechism says that baptism has replaced circumcision. (Emphasis mine).
Q & A 74
Q. Should infants also be baptized?
A. Yes. Infants as well as adults are included in God’s covenant and people, and they, no less than adults, are promised deliverance from sin through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith. Therefore, by baptism, the sign of the covenant, they too should be incorporated into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New Testament by baptism.
Bannerman in The Church of Christ II, p. 98 says the following:
Circumcision was independent either of the introduction or abolition of the law of Moses, and would have continued the standing ordinance for admission into the Church of God as the seal of the covenant of grace, had not baptism been expressly appointed as a substitute for it."
Pierre C.H. Marcel in The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism, p. 157 says the following:
One may admit that during the Mosaic period circumcision acquired a certain typical significance. But originally it was a sign and seal of the covenant which was made with Abraham. In so far as it was a type, it naturally vanished with the appearance of the anti-type, and even in so far as it was the seal of the covenant it gave place to an unbloody sacrament expressly instituted by Jesus Christ for the Church, and recognized as such by the Apostles, for, thanks to His work of redemption, Christ put an end once for all to the shedding of blood.
For the second part of the question, namely, why circumcision is associated with the law of Moses by the Judaizers, the answer is simple. Circumcision is part of the Mosaic law! While it is true that circumcision was first inaugurated with Abraham, it is repeated in the law of Moses. Jesus mentions this in John 7:22-23:
Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?
So the Judaizers aren't exactly incorrect to associate circumcision with Moses, even though Moses was not the first to circumcise.
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Circumcision didn't pass away; it blossomed from a physical act into a spiritual reality. The NT insists on a circumcised heart; without it there is no salvation. What was a sign - cutting off flesh - became a living reality as the Holy Spirit circumcises the heart. Even though we can't immediately see the results of the Spirit-heart circumcision, it is more real and effective than the physical act. Abraham was changed. His name was changed, and his body was changed. These were tangible effects of a real inward change.
One interesting sidenote, while we aren't sure of the precise origin of the word covenant, it might derive from the same word family for cut. The idea of covenant is introduced with God passing through the cut animals in Gen. 15.
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