Why is Jesus Our Substitute?

Baptist Identity in 17th Century England

English Baptists emerged during persecution in 17^th century. Various groups, among them Separatists, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians, all tried to court favor with the new sovereign, James I. Separatists were sadly mistaken if they felt they had a friend in King James. McBeth observed “[t]he idea of religious liberty horrified him.”[1] James, that “most dread sovereign” whom God, by “great and manifold” blessings[2] sent to rule over England, was determined to exercise authority over the church as well as the state. He believed it was “the chiefest of kingly duties . . . to settle affairs of religion.”[3] The separatists, however, couldn’t disagree more. They urged King James I to show mercy. “They asserted that every man had a right to judge for himself in matters of religion and that to persecute on account of religion is illegal and antichristian.”[4] James I feared a freedom of conscience in religion might well lead to civil anarchy. He saw a very basic political necessity for religious conformity; a sentiment shared by his Son, Charles I. It was therefore the policy of the Crown to harass and persecute dissenters from the Church of England. Baptist identity in Britain was forged in the midst of this persecution.

John Smyth (1612) stated, in embryo form, the very principles of religious liberty many Baptists continue to argue for today. Essentially, he asserted that Baptists recognized the civil authority of the state, but “would not allow the government to determine or regulate their relation to God.”[5]

“That the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, to force or compel men to this or that form of religion, or doctrine: but to leave Christian religion free, to every man’s conscience, and to handle only civil transgressions (Rom xiii), injuries and wrongs of man against man, in murder, adultery, theft, etc., for Christ only is the king, and lawgiver of the church and conscience (James iv. 12).”[6]

Other Baptists, such as Thomas Helwys (1612), plainly stated that any man should be free to worship, or not, as he pleased without any interference from the state.[7]

“And we bow ourselves to the earth . . . beseeching the King to judge righteous judgment herein, whether there be so unjust a thing, and of so great cruel tyranny, under the sun, as to force men’s consciences in their religion to God, seeing that if they err, they must pay the price of their transgression with the loss of their souls. Oh, let the King judge, is it not most equal that men should chose their religion themselves, seeing they must only stand themselves before the judgment seat of God to answer for themselves, when it shall be no cause for them to say, ‘we were commanded or compelled to be of this religion’ by the King, or by them that had authority from him . . .”[8]

“For men’s religion to God, is between God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it, neither ma the King be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever; it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”[9]

Leonard Busher (1614) colorfully, but somewhat crassly, compared forced worship to spiritual rape. Busher argued that “regeneration is the result of faith in Christ; and that no king or bishop is able to command faith. Persecution, therefore, is irrational, and must fail of its object; men cannot be made Christians by force.”[10] He wrote:

“. . . to constrain princes and peoples to receive that one true religion of the gospel, is wholly against the mind and merciful law of Christ, dangerous both to king and state, a means to decrease the kingdom of Christ, and a means to increase the kingdom of antichrist . . .”[11]

“And no king nor bishop can, or is able to command faith; That is the gift of God, who worketh in us both the will and the deed of his own good pleasure. Set him not a day, therefore, in which, if his creature hear not and believe not, you will imprison and burn him. Paul was a blasphemer and also a persecutor, and could not be converted by the apostles and ministers of Christ; yet at last was received to mercy, and converted extraordinarily by Christ himself . . . And as kings and bishops cannot command the wind, so they cannot command faith; . . . You may force men to church against their consciences, but they will believe as they did afore.”[12]

Baptists stood on the Scriptures when they declared that men must never have their religious convictions forced.

The Baptists, and other dissenters, had a brief respite during the time of Oliver Cromwell, but that all came crashing down when the monarchy was restored and the Church of England welcomed back as the official state church. Armitage writes that “the Baptists became, as usual, the special subjects of hate, storm and chains; prisons and doom became their gloomy fate.”[13] The Act of Uniformity (1662) decreed that all English ministers be “uniform” in doctrine and liturgy. The Conventicle Act (1664) forbade unauthorized worship services with more than five persons present (beyond the immediate family. Another act forbade ejected ministers from forming new congregations within five miles of their previous residence. King Charles II did declare a year-long moratorium on persecution, provided dissenters register to receive leniency. When the tide of public opinion shifted one year later, these same registers were used to hunt down dissenters![14] Desperate Baptists resorted to all manner of deception and ingenuity in order to simply meet for worship. One desperate plea to the King sums up the Baptist experience in this time of tribulation:

“We dare not walk the streets, and are abused even in our own houses. If we pray to God with our families, we are threatened to be hung. Some of us are stoned almost to death, and others imprisoned for worshiping God according to the dictates of our consciences and the rule of his word.”[15]

In large measure, the modern Baptist identity was forged amidst the persecution in England in the 17^th century.

———————————————————-

Footnotes:

[1] H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1987), 100.

[2] From the “Epistle Dedicatory” to the King James Bible.

[3] McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 100.

[4] John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists, 2 vols. (Texarkana, TX: Bogard Press, 1922; Kindle reprint, 2013), vol. 1, Kindle Locations 4109-4110.

[5] McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 102.

[6] John Smyth, “On Religious Liberty,” from H. Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1990), 70.

[7] Ibid, 103.

[8] Thomas Helwys, “The Mistery of Iniquity,” from McBeth, Sourcebook, 72. I modernized the spelling myself.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Christian, History of the Baptists, vol. 1, Kindle Locations 4138-4139.

[11] Leonard Busher, “Religion’s Peace, 1614,” from H. Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1990), 73.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists (New York, NY: Bryan, Taylor & Co., 1890; reprint, Watertown, WI: Roger Williams Archive, n.d.), 603.

[14] McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 115-116.

[15] Armitage, History of the Baptists, 603.

Why Should Christians Be Happy? (1 Peter 1:1-12)

This is the start of a series of messages through the Books of 1 & 2 Peter. These are essentially sermon notes that have been expanded for a reading audience. I hope these messages will be helpful!

————————————————–

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT:

In the military, everybody’s favorite duty station is always (1) the place they’re heading to, or (2) the place they just left from. You might get shipped to a pretty horrible duty station in the military, but you know that it won’t last forever – because eventually you’ll get on that plane and go back home. I can still remember the joy I felt whenever I came home in leave when I was stationed overseas in the U.S. Navy. I looked forward to that magic moment when I would step off the plane and see Starbucks waiting for me in the terminal!

From a spiritual standpoint, I can get really down sometimes because I forget that, just like when I was in the military, I’ll be transferred to glory one day – because I’m a child of God! I forget to take the long view. I forget what’s waiting for me at the finish line and get caught up feeling sorry for myself in my problems – whatever they may be.

I’m not minimizing whatever you may be going through or have gone through. This is a world filled with sin, ruined by the Fall, and bad things happen. What I want to do is encourage you today about some very basic truths about the Christian life, and why you ought to smile and be happy today – no matter what kind of valley you’re in the middle of right now! So, here are some reasons from Peter why Christians ought to be happy . . .

#1 – BECAUSE GOD HAS GIVEN YOU A HOME! (V.1):

1	Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

Peter wrote this letter to the “strangers” who are scattered all around Asia Minor (what we know as Turkey). Did you know that the Bible says that Christians[1] are “strangers and pilgrims” in this world? Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place for us in heaven (Jn 14:2-3). The writer of Hebrews said that all the Old Testament believers counted themselves as strangers and pilgrims who looked forward to being citizens of a heavenly country. While they were alive they didn’t see this heavenly country, but they sure looked forward to it!

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city,” (Hebrews 11:13-16).

Think of the border crisis. Think of a legal alien, who has a green card. What do aliens and foreigners in the U.S. have to endure? They don’t have the same rights, privileges or comforts of citizens. They can’t vote, can’t be elected to office, can’t bring family members to the U.S., and can’t get government jobs! Why not? Because they’re not citizens!

If we’re just strangers and pilgrims here, that means this world isn’t our permanent home!

No matter what evil or wickedness we endure in this world . . .
No matter what people do to us or say to us . . .
No matter how hard or depressing our circumstances can be . . .

We have this sure promise – we’re heavenly citizens and we have a room waiting for us there right now![2]

#2 – BECAUSE GOD CHOSE TO SAVE YOU (VV.2-3):

2	Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
3	Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

I want you to know that the fact that God saved you means that you’re special to Him! Every single Person of the Godhead was personally involved in your salvation and rescue from hell:[3]

You were individually chosen (“elect”) by God the Father before the world even began
You were made holy (“sanctified”) by the Spirit when you were born again – your heart was made clean and washed
Your punishment was paid by Christ when He died for you in your place; His blood atoned for your sin. In the Old Covenant, a priest had to take the blood of your sacrificial animal and sprinkle it on the altar to atone for your sins. Christ took His own blood and sacrificed Himself to atone for all our sins[4]

You are special to God, and I think we sort of lose sight of that fact in our day to day life. You ought to praise God for your salvation![5] Peter says that it’s because of His “abundant mercy” that you were born again. “Mercy” means that God took pity on us when we didn’t deserve it. You have a living (“lively”) hope in eternal life. Just like Christ was resurrected and went to heaven to be with God the Father, so will you . . . and it’s all due to God!

“To God be the glory, great things He hath done! So loved He the world that He gave us His Son!”

#3 – YOUR SALVATION IS SECURE! (V.4-5):

4	To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
5	Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Your inheritance in God’s Kingdom . . .

Is incorruptible. It won’t rot and wither away like a piece of fruit
Is undefiled. It’s pure; it doesn’t become contaminated by anything we do
Doesn’t fade away. The freshest flower will fade away and die – your inheritance in God’s Kingdom won’t. Christ has prepared a place for you; it’s got your name on it, and it’s waiting for you!

#4 – ALL THIS IS WHY YOU CAN KEEP GOING (VV.6-9):

6	Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

God saved you. The Holy Spirit helps you every day through life. Jesus promised to come back for you. That means you can keep on fighting each and every day, living Christ-like lives while you wait for God to make good on His promises. Why? Because you’re going to transfer home one day – Jesus has promised to prepare a place for you.

Peter knew what it was to suffer persecution; so did all these early Christians. Peter is writing this letter from Rome, where the insane Emperor Nero was on the throne! This idea of looking towards the end as a way to get through the present wasn’t some pie-in-the-sky idea to him, and it shouldn’t be to you, either! Peter told them to rejoice in what God has done and will do for them, as they struggled through problems, persecutions and everyday temptations.[6] Look past your struggles, whatever they are, and know that God has an eternity of rest waiting for you.

7	That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8	Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9	Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

One thing God does is allow trials to challenge and grow our faith. Peter compares it to gold. One method to refine gold is to melt it and use some kind of gaseous chlorine to attract all the impurities, which float to the top. The impurities are skimmed off, and you have 99.5% pure gold. Peter says, like gold, we go through bad times and suffer through terrible events, and all the while our faith is being strengthened.[7] We see things in our Christian walk we need to fix. Impurities, bad attitudes and un-Christian mindsets are skimmed off, leaving a more authentic and real faith behind; a refined and stronger faith and a more pure faith. The gold is never destroyed by this process; it only removes the impurities.

Through it all, we keep going so we can glorify the God who saved us from hell and has done so much for us. Every single time we persevere through any struggle with our testimony and our faith intact and even strengthened – we bring praise, honor and glory to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ![8] When He returns for us we’re finished struggling, and we can say we’ve done our part in honoring Him!

And again – what is our motivation? Peter reminds us that we haven’t even seen Christ, but we:

Love Him
We love Him and what He did for us
That means we can rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory!”

“I have found that hope so bright and clear, living in the realm of grace!”

“Oh, the Savior’s presence is so near, I can see His smiling face . . .!”

“It is joy unspeakable and full of glory . . . Oh, the half has never yet been told!”

I think this is worth being happy about!

#5 – YOU KNOW MORE THAN DAVID AND MOSES DID (VV.10-12):

You know more about Christ, salvation, heaven and God than anyone in the Old Testament ever did:

“For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them,” (Matthew 13:17).

This is a reason to be happy! You have more of God’s word than they ever did.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report,” (Hebrews 11:1-2).

This isn’t blind faith, as though Abraham just took a running, blind leap out into space. He knew what salvation was. He knew how good God was – God took care of Him. God fulfilled His promises. So, Abraham believed God when He said what He would do, based on what He had done. And, as we look back on the great faith of Abraham, do you realize that we can know about God than Abraham? You have more of God’s Word! The Old Testament saints didn’t have the Gospels, Paul’s letters, Peter’s letters or any other New Testament writing. If we can know so much more about God than the Old Testament saints ever did, because we have so much more of God’s Word, doesn’t that mean that we ought to be even more joyful than Moses or David?

David wrote: “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word,” (Psalm 119:15-16). A lot of the Psalms were written by him, and this was a man who didn’t know the details about Christ that we know now:

He didn’t have the Holy Spirit living inside him
He didn’t have a perfect, finished sacrifice
He didn’t have the direct and personal, constant access to God that we do now
He didn’t have the details about the end-times
He didn’t have the details about the new heavens and the new earth
He didn’t have the details about eternity in the New Jerusalem, walking in streets of gold

10	Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:

Daniel, Jeremiah, Hosea – all the prophets asked and searched and wondered about the Messiah who would come and set everything right.They wanted to know what we know now – it’s all the New Testament! How many Bibles do we have in our homes? How easy is it to go to Biblegateway.com, look on Kindle or go anywhere on the internet and find the New Testament – which has the answers the men in the Old Testament could only dream of having access to! We have it. You have it. You can know more about God than they did.

11	Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

They didn’t know how everything fit together.[9] They saw that Messiah would be sent from God. He would rule and reign, and His throne and kingdom would last forever. And yet, He would suffer and die . . . How did all this fit together? The Holy Spirit moved them to write the Scripture, but how could they make sense of it all!?

12	Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

They didn’t know how or when all the murky details about Christ would come to pass. They figured it wouldn’t be for them to know, but for the folks who were living when it happened:

“And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,” (Hebrews 11:39-40).

The believers in the OT looked forward to the promise of Christ and believed in it by faith – even though they never saw Christ or read His words in the Gospels. We have something better than they did – we look back on what Christ already did!

CONCLUSION:

If you’re a Christian, you have lots of reasons to be happy. We’re all going through something – we may be going through different things, but we’re all struggling with something. There are some people who I’d never be friends with unless we both weren’t Christians! We’re not all sitting here today because we’re from the same town, went to the same school, have the same interests or even work at the same place. What ties us together is that we’re all Christians. We can all grab hold of these simple truths:

God has given you a home in heaven that’s waiting for you
God decided to save you – specifically and individually
Your salvation is secure; it’s incorruptible, undefiled and will never fade away
You have more of God’s Word, and can know more about God than any man or woman from the OT
Because all this is true, stay happy, and keep on keepin’ on through whatever you’re dealing with – God’s promises are real and true

Do your best to live a Christ-like life, walking worthy of our great God and Savior, while we wait for orders to ship out back home to heaven – where Christ has a place waiting for you!

———————————————————

Footnotes:

[1] Some argue that Peter was writing to Jewish Christians. After all, Peter was an apostle to the Jews and his epistles are saturated with OT references and allusions. However, I follow D. Edmond Hiebert in assuming that Peter is just writing to Christians in general: “[i]t seems more natural to understand Peter’s use of the term metaphorically, as a picture of Christians scattered in various areas as minority groups in a non-Christian world,” (1 Peter, revised ed. [Chicago, IL: Moody, 1992; reprint, Winona Lake, IN: BMH, 2008], 47).

[2] “Peter is writing a travellers’ guide for Christian pilgrims. He reminds them that their hope is anchored in their homeland. They are called to endure alienation as strangers, but they have a heavenly citizenship and destiny,” (Edmund P. Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, The Bible Speaks Today [Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 1988; Kindle edition, 2014], Kindle Locations 471-472).

[3] “To describe what God has done to bring about his great design, Peter refers to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus Christ. God’s choosing of his people is applied to them through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood (1: 2). It is by the Spirit that God ‘has given us new birth’ (1: 3), and it is by Christ’s blood that we are cleansed and redeemed (1: 18– 19). The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, accomplishes our salvation,” (Clowney, 1 Peter, Kindle Locations 438-442).

[4] I disagree with particular redemption.

[5] Peter’s point is not to write a theological treatise or to systematically explain soteriology. “The opening characterization of the readers as elect was meant to strengthen and encourage them in their affliction. The doctrine of election is a ‘family truth’ intended to foster the welfare of believers,” (Hiebert, 1 Peter, 46).

[6] “Peter will describe the political and social duties of the Christian pilgrim. But first the pilgrim must know his calling. It is not to pursue the mirage of humanistic hope. Neither is it to bow down to worship the imperial images of totalitarian power. It is to obey Jesus Christ until the day of his appearing,” (Clowney, 1 Peter, Kindle Locations 570-572).

[7] “God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self-confidence and drive us to our Saviour. The fires of affliction or persecution will not reduce our faith to ashes. Fire does not destroy gold: it only removes combustible impurities,” (Clowney, 1 Peter, Kindle Locations 709-711).

[8] Hiebert suggests that we will be awarded praise, honor and glory by Christ at our glorification (1 Peter, 68-69). I am not comfortable with this idea. Everything we do is for the glory of God. Believers surely will receive crowns for their faithful service, and we will be glorified, but I am very reluctant to ascribe any glory and honor to us. “If we receive crowns of glory, it will be our joy to cast them at the feet of the Saviour,” (Clowney, 1 Peter, Kindle Location 729).

[9] I see the searching and inquiring by the OT prophets as being about how all the pieces would fit together, not about when. This is a major bone of contention. It also touches on the issue of the content of saving faith before the explicit revelation of Christ in the New Covenant. “The words search and inquiry imply a lack of knowledge about how the prophesies would be fulfilled, not about what they meant,” (William Baker, James & First and Second Peter, 21^st Century Biblical Commentary Series, ed. Mal Couch and Ed Hindson [Chattanooga, TN: AMG, 2004], 108).

The prophets were concerned with the time of the Messiah’s explicit advent, of course, but they were worried about more than that. It wasn’t just the timing, but the manner of His appearance and the characteristics of His ministry that concerned them. John Calvin observes,

“There was a difference between the law and the gospel, a veil as it were being interposed, that they might not see those things nearer which are now set before our eyes. Nor was it indeed proper, while Christ the Sun of righteousness was yet absent, that the full light should shine as at mid-day. And though it was their duty to confine themselves within their prescribed limits, yet it was no superstition to sigh with a desire of having a nearer sight. For when they wished that redemption should be hastened, and desired daily to see it, there was nothing in such a wish to prevent them patiently to wait as long as it pleased the Lord to defer the time,” (Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010], 38–39). Calvin went on to say that “[m]oreover, to seek as to prophecies the particular time, seems to me unprofitable; for what is spoken of here is not what the prophets taught, but what they wished,” (Catholic Epistles, 39).

Not everyone agrees. Hiebert says the prophets sought only the timing (1 Peter, 75-76). So dies Tom Schreiner; “Peter’s point, of course, was that the prophets predicted these matters but did not know when they would be fulfilled, and they hoped upon hope that they would be fulfilled in their days,” (1, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 37, The New American Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003], 73).

They are wrong. The confusion the disciples showed during Christ’s first advent, and the sudden flash of understanding after the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost seen to decisively tilt the argument in favor of how the prophesies about the Messiah would be fulfilled. The core issue, perhaps, is what exactly the prophets understood about Christ in the OT. I am in full agreement with Dallas Theological Seminary’s statement on this matter: “We believe also that they did not understand the redemptive significance of the prophecies or types concerning the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet. 1:10–12); therefore, we believe that their faith toward God was manifested in other ways as is shown by the long record in Hebrews 11:1–40.”

Where Did Baptists Come From? A Brief Case for Spiritual-Kinship

What Saith Baptists?

Where did Baptists come from? There are many different theories out there:

English Separatism. Some say that the Baptist identity, as it exists today, is an outgrowth from 17^th century English Separatism
Anabaptist Origins. Some say that Baptists have their origins in the Anabaptist movement from the 16^th century
Spiritual-Kinship. Others say that Baptistic churches, to greater or lesser extent, have always existed since the church has been founded
Unbroken Succession. Still others claim that there has been a sure, certain and unbroken chain of true Baptist churches since the time of the apostles

This paper will not evaluate each position. I will simply put forth my own modest case for believing in the Spiritual-Kinship view of Baptist origins. This position is simply stated by Jack Hoad:

“Making a full allowance for the failures of those early baptistic witnesses for the truth, we conclude that the Holy Spirit has continually raised up a biblical witness against apostasy and to a surprising extent those upsurges have borne a common testimony, majoring on those principles of faith and order which are characteristically Baptist, or what is even more important, the marks of true apostolic Christianity.”[1]

Thomas Armitage adds:

“So, likewise, the unity of Christianity is not found by any visible tracing through one set of people. It has been enwrapped in all who have followed purely apostolic principles through the ages; and thus the purity of Baptist life is found in the essence of their doctrines and practices by whomsoever enforced.”[2]

“Truth calls us back to the radical view, that any Church which bears the real apostolic stamp is in direct historical descent from the apostles, without relation to any other Church past or present.”[3]

What is a Baptist?

Baptists are not a denomination, as such. A denomination has a united, common confession and a creed. It has a hierarchy and layers of authority. It has periodic meetings and issues edicts that the churches are required to follow, or be at risk of expulsion. In short, a denomination controls its churches, in some form or fashion. No Baptist ought to submit to this. We’re autonomous, not monolithic. Basically, I think it is safe to say that that the Baptist is not defined by a list of distinctives per se, but by a philosophy of ministry.

“Baptists, let it be repeated, are not in essence a denomination at all. Their ‘stripes’ or ‘spots’ may be deep-dyed but are not all found uniformly and consistently in all those families of Christians called by that name . . . One clear factor, which is emerging in thus ecumenical age, is that Baptists, true Baptists, are uncomfortable bedfellows. Their inherent nonconformity and rugged independence is liable to wreck the best laid schemes to merge into one the many strands of professed Christianity in the world.”[4]

Baptists are concerned with the purity of the church, and simply abiding by what the New Testament says about the church – nothing more and nothing less. Jack Hoad bluntly stated, “the Baptist Identity is therefore defined by the thorough-going submission to the Word of God in everything, with the consequent rejection of all else that has no explicit requirement in scripture.”[5] What does it means to be concerned with the “purity” of the church? This is where the various acrostics of “Baptist distinctives” come into play. All the Baptist acrostics (both BAPTIST and BRAPSIS²) exist to explain what the New Testament teaches about the church. The distinctives do not, in and of themselves, explain the Baptist identity. They are not infallible “marks” of a Baptist. They merely elaborate on what the New Testament teaches about the doctrine of the church.

“From their earliest manifestations, they have been a protest movement against any over-riding authority, whether secular or ecclesiastical. They stand for the simplicity of the New Testament order of local independent churches. Not that they are isolationists for they have readily recognized like-minded churches and sought to express their inherent responsibilities towards each other. They have, however, persisted in there being one only God-appointed basic unit, the local church, with no overlordship of any kind, other than that of Christ Himself, who is the Head of the Church. It is this, taken with the insistence on a regenerate, believing and baptized church-membership, which makes that primary distinctive of Baptist churches. This is the Baptist doctrine of the church.”[6]

To define what a Baptist is, and to therefore answer the question ‘where did Baptists come from,’ it is necessary to set aside detailed acrostics and distill and crystallize what the Baptist philosophy is. They are:[7]

The supremacy, sole authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures in all matters of Christian faith and practice, which translates into a complete obedience and submission to . . .
The Biblical Doctrine of the Church and a willingness to be always reforming our church polity, practice and philosophy to that ideal

A Baptist believes the Bible is the only place where the doctrine of the church (and all that entails) is taught. The distinctives flow from that principle:

“Where scripture rules there can be no marriage to the state, no shared rule with the magistracy, no subservience of the local church to denominational structures or officialdom, no use of force of any kind to compel faith, no unwilling or unconscious ‘baptisms’ and no compromise with erroneous bodies.”[8]

Notice that Hoad touched on all of the so-called “Baptist distinctives” in this brief explanation. Obedience to Scripture will yield every single Baptist distinctive without exception. Insofar as a local church pursued the NT doctrine of the church, it was a baptistic church. This is why the so-called Spiritual-Kinship theory of Baptist origins is correct. There is massive evidence that various separatist groups throughout church history have struggled, to greater or lesser extent, to cast off the doctrines of men and follow a distinctly Biblical church polity.

The Struggle for Purity – Separatist Groups

The Novatians

In the mid-3^rd century, the Novatian schism arose in the aftermath of religious persecution. Should church members who apostatized during persecution be re-admitted to fellowship? Novatians insisted the apostates not be re-admitted. They were separatists who took church membership seriously. Rome developed her own ecclesiology partly in response to this challenge.

“The Novatianists considered themselves the only pure communion, and unchurched all churches which defiled themselves by re-admitting the lapsed, or any other gross offenders. They went much farther than Cyprian, even as far as the later Donatists. They admitted the possibility of mercy for a mortal sinner, but denied the power and the right of the church to decide upon it, and to prevent, by absolution, the judgment of God upon such offenders. They also, like Cyprian, rejected heretical baptism, and baptized all who came over to them from other communions not just so rigid as themselves.”[9]

Thomas Armitage wrote:

“The Novatians demanded pure Churches which enforced strict discipline, and so were called Puritans. They refused to receive the lapsed back into the Churches, and because they held the Catholics corrupt in receiving them, they re-immersed all who came to them from the Catholics. For this reason alone they were called ‘Anabaptists,’ although they denied that this was rebaptism, holding the first immersion null and void because it had been received from corrupt Churches.”[10]

As Justo Gonzalez has put it, “the issue was whether purity or forgiving love should be the characteristic note of the church.”[11] The Novatians were worried about the purity of the church, and took the Bible’s commands for church discipline and membership seriously.

The Donatists

This schism was once again about the purity of the church, specifically those who has apostatized amidst persecution. We have more information about these folks than the others. They were concerned about:

Church membership (true believers)
Separation from impure fellowships
Church purity
Godly ministers
A free church mindset (autonomy)

“The Donatists championed a church which was pure, a church was intolerant of those elements which would contaminate it. A chief emphasis of the Donatists was upon the holiness of the church.”[12]

The tale of the Donatist controversy is too long to tell here, but suffice it to say that they stood firm amidst intolerance and persecution – because they believed what the Bible taught about the church. Augustine, when gentle persuasion failed, turned to force to achieve his aims.

“. . . by his misuse of the words of Luke 14:23, ‘Compel them to come in,’ Augustine, during this time, set forth teachings that would ultimately make him the first widely influential churchman to assert and argue the doctrine that the power of the state can legitimately banish separatist Christians in favor of the Catholic Church and transfer their properties to the Catholics.”[13]

Schaff’s words here are excellent:

“The Donatist controversy was a conflict between separatism and catholicism; between ecclesiastical purism and ecclesiastical eclecticism; between the idea of the church as an exclusive community of regenerate saints and the idea of the church as the general Christendom of state and people. It revolved around the doctrine of the essence of the Christian church, and, in particular, of the predicate of holiness.”[14]

As Beale has observed, “[t]he orthodox Donatists’ only crimes were separation and rebaptism.”[15]

The Medieval Era

It’s easy to scour historical records, searching for something “Baptist” to hang one’s hat on. “We may attribute to them more light and knowledge than they really believed, thus adopting too rosy-hued a viewpoint.”[16] You see traces of concern for a pure church from groups in the medieval age. The Albigenses thought the Roman Catholic Church was the whore of Babylon.[17] The Paulicans “were really ‘men who were disgusted with the doctrines and ceremonies of human invention, and desirous of returning to the apostolic doctrine and practice.’ ”[18] The Waldensians were likewise very concerned about the purity of the church and believed in separation from false teaching. Pickering concludes that “[i]n the study of these dissident groups, the doctrine of the ‘gathered’ church, that is, the church of the regenerate only, comes to the fore time and again.”[19]

The Anabaptists

“They thought that the Reformers stopped half-way, and did not go to the root of the evil. They broke with the historical tradition, and constructed a new church of believers on the voluntary principle. Their fundamental doctrine was, that baptism is a voluntary act, and requires personal repentance, and faith in Christ. They rejected infant-baptism as an anti-scriptural invention. They could find no trace of it in the New Testament, the only authority in matters of faith. They were cruelly persecuted in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic countries. We must carefully distinguish the better class of Baptists and the Mennonites from the restless revolutionary radicals and fanatics, like Carlstadt, Muenzer, and the leaders of the Muenster tragedy.”[20]

One scholar says that Anabaptists “were the main forerunners of ‘sectarian Protestantism,’ and their views on religious liberty are today common currency among free church groups.”[21]

In the main, the orthodox Anabaptists believed:

(1) Church members had to be regenerate, and therefore only believers could be baptized. “By baptism the believer comes under the discipline of a Biblical people, and if the door of entrance is closely watched a strong and true church can be maintained.”[22]

(2) Separation. If you’re concerned about a pure church, then it means that separation is sometimes necessary

(3) Church discipline, which is rooted in the concern for the purity of the church and its members. “Spiritual government rests, in the end, upon the threat of expulsion from the congregation of believers: the Ban. In some cases this may have meant social ostracism, but generally it meant the loss of privileges within the brotherhood.”[23]

(4) Soul liberty. Because of incessant persecution, Anabaptists firmly believed that a man ought to be left alone to worship God as he sees fit. For example, Schaff writes that in Zurich the Anabaptists were forced to baptize their infants:

“The magistracy decided against them, and issued an order that infants should be baptized as heretofore, and that parents who refuse to have their children baptized should leave the city and canton with their families and goods.”[24]

“The blood of these poor people flowed like water so that they cried to the Lord for help.… But hundreds of them of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing psalms.”[25]

Baptists have inherited this insistence on religious liberty from the Anabaptists. “The concept of religious freedom was implicit in the Anabaptist movement. They, as well as others within that which has been called the ‘Radical Reformation,’ insisted that one’s personal religious commitment was between himself and God alone and that the nature of the Christian faith, discipleship, and the church demanded complete freedom.”[26]

Estep well remarks, “[i]f we can learn anything from the Anabaptist experience, it should teach us that coercion makes no true Christians, but, as Roger Williams said three centuries ago, only hypocrites.”[27]

Conclusion

There have always been groups throughout the ages who have sought to go “back to the Bible” for their ecclesiology. Insofar as a group actually followed the New Testament doctrine of the church, they were baptistic (to greater or lesser extent). The Baptist “denomination” (philosophy would be a better term) is not an invention of 17^th-century English separatism.

Leon McBeth writes that Baptist viewpoints certainly did exist before that time, but “[t]he seventeenth-century Baptists did not invent these doctrines; they rediscovered and articulated them afresh for a new era.”[28] This is specious reasoning. Baptist ecclesiology is Biblical ecclesiology. To say that the Baptist identity did not form until the 17^th-century is to suggest that every single local church, to some extent, was not following the New Testament pattern up until that time. Nothing could be more outrageous.

McBeth anticipates this accusation, and retorts that “one should distinguish between faith assumptions and historical evidence.”[29] To follow McBeth’s reasoning, one would also have to conclude:

The doctrine of justification by faith first came about during the Reformation. The Reformers didn’t invent the doctrine, but rediscovered and articulated it afresh for a new era. No church must have actually taught the doctrine as a whole before the Reformation, because it wasn’t neatly packaged and systematized until that time.

The deity of Christ came about at the Council of Nicea. They didn’t invent the doctrine, but rediscovered and articulated it afresh for a new era. No church must have actually taught the doctrine as a whole before that time, because it wasn’t neatly packaged and systematized until then.

I could go on, but the point is made. Just because a doctrine is systematized at some later date, it does not follow that the doctrine was not taught, believed and practiced prior to that date. If it is a Biblical doctrine, men everywhere have taught, believed and practiced it to some extent. This is why I believe in the Spiritual-Kinship view of Baptist origins.

Notes

[1] Jack Hoad, The Baptist (London, UK: Grace Publications, 1986), 24.

[2] Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists (New York, NY: Bryan, Taylor & Co., 1890; reprint, Watertown, WI: Roger Williams Archive, n.d.), 1.

[3] Hoad, The Baptist, 2.

[4] Ibid, 10.

[5] Ibid, 17.

[6] Ibid, 10-11.

[7] Ibid, 14.

[8] Ibid, 17.

[9] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8 vols. (Peabody, MS: Hendrickson, 2011), 2:196.

[10] Armitage, History of the Baptists, 178.

[11] Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Present Day, combined ed. (Peabody, MS: Prince Press, 2007), 1:90.

[12] Ernest Pickering, Biblical Separation: The Struggle for a Pure Church (Schaumberg, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 1979), 20.

[13] David O. Beale, Historical Theology In-Depth (Greenville, SC: BJU Press, 2013), 1:376.

[14] Schaff, History, 3:365.

[15] Beale, Historical Theology, 1:376-377.

[16] Pickering, Separation, 29.

[17] Ibid, 31.

[18] Ibid, 33.

[19] Ibid, 39.

[20] Schaff, History, 7:607.

[21] Franklin Littell, “The Anabaptist Doctrine of the Restitution of the True Church,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 24 (1950), 33.

[22] Ibid, 36.

[23] Ibid, 37.

[24] Schaff, History, 8:82.

[25] Ibid, 8:84.

[26] William Estep, “The Reformation: Anabaptist Style,” Criswell Theological Review 6.2 (1993), 201.

[27] Ibid, 206.

[28] Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1987), 61.

[29] Ibid, 62.

What is ‘Landmarkism?’ A Quick Look at a Strange Baptist Polity

Introduction

If you’re a Baptist in America, you’ve probably heard of a peculiar brand of Baptist polity called “Landmarkism.” This kind of philosophy is also called the “Baptist Bride” mentality. It is an incorrect and Biblically-indefensible idea that says that the only “true churches” are local Baptist churches. This point of view holds that all other churches are false churches and illegitimate. This brief paper will show that the “Landmarkism” point of view is wrong, and not for the reason you’re probably thinking. A fiery, intelligent and formidable preacher from the late 19^th century named J. R. Graves is largely responsible for the development of Landmarkism. He wrote in 1880:

“I think it is no act of presumption in me to assume to know what I meant by the Old Landmarks, since I was the first man in Tennessee, and the first editor on this continent, who publicly advocated the policy of strictly and consistently carrying out in our practice those principles which all true Baptists, in all ages, have professed to believe.”[1]

It is always a warning sign when a man boasts that he alone has re-discovered a great truth, and that we all must listen to him. On a continent swarming with staunch Baptists, Graves claimed to other Baptists that he alone was following the New Testament model of “how to do church.” This paper is not a history of this movement. It is a quick look at what Graves has to say about the distinguishing features of the movement.

A whole bunch of pious Baptists will proudly say that they believe there have always been churches which have followed Baptist polity, to greater or lesser extent, since the church was founded. This is not Landmarkism; it is a perfectly legitimate view about Baptist origins known as “Spiritual-Kinship.” No, the distinguishing mark of Landmarkism is that the local, Baptist church is God’s Kingdom on earth. They are terribly wrong on this point, and because their entire doctrine of the church is built on this house of sand, their entire doctrine of the church is simply and terribly wrong.

Basic Teachings of Landmarkism

#1 – The Churches and the Kingdom are the Same

Graves stated:

“The locality of Christ’s church, and therefore kingdom, is this earth; all the subjects of His kingdom are here; all the work of His church is here. This earth was given to Him by His Father to be the sole seat of His throne and His kingdom.”[2]

This is the linchpin of Graves’ entire system. It is a deluded piece of reasoning, a polemic without any Biblical support. The closest Graves comes to Biblically justifying his position is this: “I understand that Christ’s declaration (Matthew 16:18), and Paul’s statement (Heb. 12:28), are emphatic commentaries upon the prophecy of Daniel (2: 44).”[3] Other Landmarkers, like historian John T. Christian, agree but mute their view: “[t]he churches so organized are to continue in the world until the kingdoms of this earth shall become the kingdom of our Lord, even Christ. Prophecy was full of the enduring character of the kingdom of Christ (Daniel 2:44, 45).”[4]

There is no space here for a critique of this statement. However, suffice it so say that the context of Daniel and the writings of the prophets on New Covenant (not to mention the kingdom itself) are enough to dismiss Graves’ view out of hand.

Graves goes on:

“I understand these Scriptures to teach that this organization, called here ‘kingdom’ and ‘church’ is the conception of the divine mind, the expression of the divine thought, and the embodiment of the divine authority on earth.”[5]

If Graves considers the kingdom to be the local churches, then this very easily explains why the doctrine of the church is so important to Landmarkers:

“And for man to set up any form of church as equal, or in opposition, to it, and influence men to join themselves to it, under the impression that they are uniting with Christ’s church, is an act of open rebellion to Christ as the only King of Zion . . .”[6]

Again, this is perfectly understandable if one thinks the local, Baptist churches are the Kingdom of God. Graves essentially says other denominations are in rebellion against God Himself. The church is God’s Kingdom, and “[t]o despise and reject its teachings is to despise the Author of those teachings.”[7]

Here is where it gets interesting:

“The churches of Christ constitute the kingdom of Christ, as the twelve tribes, each separate and independent of itself, constituted the kingdom of Israel; as the provinces of a kingdom constitute the kingdom; as all the separate sovereign States of these United States constitute the Republic of America. Now, as no foreigner can become a citizen of this Republic without being naturalized as a citizen of some one of the States, so no one can enter the kingdom of Christ without becoming a member of some one of His visible churches.”[8]

Do you see his reasoning so far?

Baptist Churches = Jesus’ Promised Kingdom
Not a Baptist = In Rebellion Against God
In Rebellion Against God = Not in His Kingdom
Not in His Kingdom = Not a Believer

Therefore:

Not a True Baptist = Not a Believer

Graves might not push the implications quite this far, but they’re obvious enough for any intelligent person to realize.

#2 – Baptist Churches are the Only True Churches in the World

According to Graves, Baptist churches are the only true representation of Christ’s kingdom on this earth. It logically follows, therefore, that only Baptist churches are true churches:

“It must be true that those who originate such false churches, and those who support them by their means and influence, occupy the positions of rebels against the rightful and supreme authority of Christ. Designed as the ‘house and church of the living God’ was by an architect possessing infinite wisdom, who saw the end from the beginning, every conceivable exigency that could effect it to the end of time, must have been foreseen and provided for; and the very intimation that changes have become necessary, the better to adapt it to fulfill its mission, is impiously to impugn the divine wisdom that devised and set it up.”[9]

“Christ enjoined it upon His apostles and ministers for all time to come, to construct all organizations that should bear His name according to the pattern and model He “built” before their eyes; and those who add to or diminish aught, do it at their peril. (Rev. 22: 18,19). Organizations bearing the name of Christ devised and set up by men are manifestly counterfeits, and certainly impositions upon the ignorance and credulity of the people.”[10]

Graves had two axioms for Baptist life that are particularly relevant to this topic:

“1. That un-immersed bodies of Christians are not churches, nor are any privileged companies of them the church, hence all Pedo-Baptists denominations are only religious societies.

2. That Baptism and an official relation to a church are prerequisites to a regular gospel minister – hence all ordinances administered by an unbaptized and unordained although immersed minister, are null and void.”[11]

Graves is wrong. Insofar as Baptist churches adhere the closest to New Testament ecclesiology, they are the most obedient churches. They are certainly not the only “true churches.” Some Baptists might object. “Wait a minute!” they may say. “Baptist churches follow the New Testament model. There is a little bit of truth here, isn’t there?”

Those who suggest that Graves had a “kernel of truth” in this assertion are terribly mistaken. Graves believed Baptist churches were the only true churches because of his views on the Kingdom. He believes the Kingdom of God is the local Baptist church! Unless a man is willing to side with Graves on the Kingdom of God, then a man must also repudiate this false view of a Baptist church being the only “true church.” You cannot have it both ways. If a man is right for the wrong reason, he is still wrong.

#3 – The True Church is a Local, Visible Institution

Once again, Graves’ overriding presupposition is that the local church is God’s kingdom on earth. A kingdom is nothing if not literal and physical. Thus, on Graves’ view, the church is always a local, visible institution. “He has no invisible kingdom or church, and such a thing has no real existence in heaven or earth. It is only an invention employed to bolster up erroneous theories of ecclesiology.”[12] Graves lists three possible views on the church:

The universal, catholic church. “According to this, there can be but one church, of the denomination adopting it, throughout the world. No single congregation is a church in any sense, but an infinitesimal part of the universal idea.”[13]
The state church.
The Baptist model. The church is a local organization. “This church acknowledges no body of men on earth, council, conference or assembly as its head, but Christ alone, who is invisible, as ‘head over all things’ to it.”[14]

Graves’ presuppositions cloud his thinking. His view on salvation is a prisoner of his doctrine of the church. Unless Graves is willing to claim that only Baptists are saved, then he must admit that believers of every denominational stripe exist all over the entire world. There is certainly a universal church in prospect; Paul tells us all about the great reunion we’ll all have together with Christ in the air (1 Thess 4:13-18)! In several places in Scripture, “the church” is spoken of as a corporate, collective body (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 1:2; Col 1:18; Eph 5:25). Again, Graves’ view here must be repudiated because his wrong-headed views on the kingdom are driving this assertion. The reason why he is so pro-local church is because he believes only Baptist churches are God’s Kingdom.

#4 – There Must Be No “Pulpit Affiliation” With Non-Baptists

Graves writes, “[i]If Baptist preachers are scriptural ministers, Pedobaptists certainly are not, and vice versa, since two things unlike each other cannot be like the same thing— scriptural.”[15] He wrote:

“There are no authorized ministers, but immersed preachers, acting under the authority of a regular church – and who have been ordained by a presbytery of immersed believers.”[16]

“Nothing could be more inconsistent than to admit those preachers into our pulpit who hold and teach doctrines, on account of which we would exclude both from our pulpits and our churches, any minister of our own denomination.”[17]

Therefore, a non-Baptist minister is a false minister. Moreover, as we have seen, a non-Baptist church is not a true church, but merely a “religious society.” Not to beat a dead horse, but presuppositions matter a great deal. Having said that, Graves is wrong. As a Baptist, my own general rule is that I will not have a non-Baptist preach in my church. If I will be out of town, I’ll have a trusted Baptist cover for me. If I am going to have a special speaker on a special topic, the speaker’s ecclesiology is the last thing on my mind. Here is my grid, in order of importance:

Orthodoxy – is the person actually a Christian (e.g. the fundamentals)?
Fundamentalist – is the person willing to defend orthodoxy?
Separatist – does the person put their money where their mouth is? If they aren’t willing, I’m not so sure they’re actually a fundamentalist!
Baptist

Ecclesiology doesn’t sum up one’s entire theological outlook. There are other factors to be considered, and there are plenty of Baptists (like Graves) who are schismatic and advance un-Biblical views. Pulpit affiliation is about more than being a Baptist; ecclesiology is simply one narrow slice of the theological pie. To make it the defining characteristic for pulpit affiliation is naïve and simplistic. Being “a Baptist” is not an umbrella term for Biblical orthodoxy, and it shouldn’t be viewed that way.

#5 – Only a Church Can Do Churchly Acts

If only Baptist churches are true “kingdom churches,” as Graves held, then it logically follows that only Baptist churches can do churchly acts. Graves believed Christ set up his kingdom a certain way – the Baptist way. There is no other form of this kingdom other than true Baptist churches. Therefore, only true Baptist churches may do any acts related to the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. Graves focused particularly on the Lord’s Supper. He advocated what Leon McBeth called a “double closed communion.” Zealous to protect the kingdom of God, Graves was concerned about inadvertently allowing a heretic to partake of the Lord’s Supper:

“If the supper is a repast for the members of each particular church only, it is because the Divine law governing the feast has made it so, and, therefore, it would be in violation of that law for a church to invite, or allow others than her own members, to partake of it; and equally so for members of another church to accept such an unlawful invitation. This is so plain to my mind that discussion is useless.”[18]

“Such churches can exclude heretics, drunkards, revelers, and “every one that walketh disorderly” from their membership, that they may not defile the feast; but they cannot protect the table from such so long as they do not limit it to their membership.”[19]

The logical extension of this view is that no “kingdom work” may be done apart from the local church. It must also be firmly kept in mind that Graves position is not simply that only local churches can do churchly acts. His position is that only local Baptist churches can do churchly acts; he regards other denominations as false.

#6 – Baptist Churches Have Always Existed in Every Age by an Unbroken Historical Succession

It is a common charge to say that Landmarkers believe in a chain-link, almost apostolic-like succession of local churches. What saith Graves?

“Landmark Baptists very generally believe that for the Word of the Living God to stand, and for the veracity of Jesus Christ to vindicate itself, the kingdom which He set up ‘in the days of John the Baptist,’ has had an unbroken continuity until now.”[20]

This makes good sense, from Graves’ point of view. However, he takes great pains to emphasize he is not speaking of an apostolic succession of churches (Ibid, Kindle Location 1690). So, what one earth does he mean?

“Nor have I, or any Landmarker known to me, ever advocated the succession of any particular church or churches; but my position is that Christ, in the very ‘days of John the Baptist,’ did establish a visible kingdom on earth, and that this kingdom has never yet been ‘broken in pieces,’ [notice the allusion to Dan 2:44-45!] nor given to another class of subjects— has never for a day ‘been moved,’ nor ceased from the earth, and never will until Christ returns personally to reign over it; that the organization He first set up , which John called ‘the Bride,’ and which Christ called His church, constituted that visible kingdom, and today all His true churches on earth constitute it; and, therefore, if His kingdom has stood unchanged, and will to the end, He must always have had true and uncorrupted churches, since His kingdom cannot exist without true churches.”[21]

Graves seems to suggest that, while he eschews the idea of an apostolic succession of local churches, he insists that true “kingdom” churches (i.e. Baptists) have always existed. He likens local churches to branch offices of a large organization; local offices may close or even move, but the company itself is obviously in business. Dunkin Donuts may close in your town, but America still runs on Dunkin:

“From the day that organization was started, it has stood; and, though it may have decayed in some places, it has flourished in others, and never has had but one beginning. Thus it has been with that institution called the Kingdom of Christ; it has had a continuous existence , or the words of Christ have failed . . .”[22]

Therefore, Graves does not claim this succession is apostolic; for example, there is no First Baptist Church of Judea. He does claim there have been Baptist churches in existence upon this earth, somewhere, since the church began. Graves must have been pressed on this issue in his day, and he retreated behind the bulwarks of piety when his attackers closed in:

“We do not admit that it devolves upon us more than upon every other lover of Jesus to prove, by uncontestable historical facts, that this kingdom of the Messiah has stood from the day it was set up by Him, unbroken and unmoved; to question it, is to doubt His sure word of promise. To deny it, is to impeach His veracity, and leave the world without a Bible or a Christ. We dare not do this. We believe that His kingdom has stood unchanged as firmly as we believe in the divinity of the Son of God, and, when we are forced to surrender the one faith, we can easily give up the other. If Christ has not kept His promise concerning His church to keep it, how can I trust Him concerning my salvation? If He has not the power to save His church, He certainly has not the power to save me. For Christians to admit that Christ has not preserved His kingdom unbroken, unmoved, unchanged, and uncorrupted, is to surrender the whole ground to infidelity. I deny that a man is a believer in the Bible who denies this.”[23]

This is all well and good, but elsewhere, Graves is less careful with his choice of words and gives his opponents ammunition:

“Baptists claim that they are successors to the ‘Witnesses of Jesus,’ who preserved the faith once delivered to the saints, and kept the ordinances as they were originally committed to the primitive Churches. They claim to be the lineal descendants of the martyrs who, for so many ages, sealed their testimony with their blood. They claim that they can trace the history of communities, essentially like themselves, back through the “wilderness,” into which they were driven by the dragon, and the beast that succeeded to him, and the image of the beast, by a trail of blood, lighted up by a thousand stake-fires, until that blood mingles with the blood of the apostles, and the Son of God, and John the Baptist. They believe that they never did, ecclesiastically, symbolize with the Papacy, but ever repudiated it as Antichrist, and withdrew from it, and refused to recognize its baptisms or ordinances, or its priests as the ministers of Christ.”[24]

“On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrine of the gospel through all ages.”[25]

Implications of the Landmark Position

Graves may object all he likes, but the clear implications of his position are that local Baptist churches have been the sole repository of Biblical faith and practice since the time of Jesus Christ. On his view, as we have seen:

All other churches are false.
All other ministers are false.
All other Gospel work is false.
Only like-minded (e.g. Landmark) Baptists ought to partake of Lord’s Supper in their churches (double-closed communion).
Only like-minded (e.g. Landmark) Baptists may preach in a Baptist church.

This is exclusivist and flawed reasoning, and it is all due to Graves’ wrong-headed idea that the local Baptist church is God’s Kingdom on earth; the Kingdom promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the prophets. The kingdom spoken of by our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Graves denies an apostolic succession of Baptist churches, but his denials are meaningless. The logical conclusion of his position suggests otherwise:

“It ought to be clear from these statements just how much importance is attached to church succession by Landmarkism. You can have no churches, no ministers, no baptism, and no Christian societies without proper authority, and you can only have that from a church in the line of succession. Thus all the churches, ministers, and baptisms outside the supposed Landmark Baptist succession are without authority, regardless of their being blessed and used by the Holy Spirit. All the great revivals of religion outside of Landmarkers, all the great evangelistic efforts by those other than Landmarkers, many of the greatest preachers of the ages, and many other movings of the Holy Spirit are without authority because some Landmark Baptist church did not meet and give its voice of approval.”[26]

Indeed, as Bob Ross has observed, if Christ’s Kingdom is the local Baptist church, then why has the Spirit done such marvelous work in and among men who were not Landmarkists?

“The great evangelists and revivalists were not Landmarkers; the great revivals of history were not within Landmarkism; the great preachers such as Bunyan, Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, Roland Hill, and others were not advocates of Landmarkism. Yet these men were Spirit-filled men who were blessed in great revivals, with souls saved, lives changed, and churches blessed. What is a Landmark valid baptism compared with such powerful blessings of the Holy Spirit of God? A succession of men of God, used by the Holy Spirit, would be a far superior succession to any visible, physical succession of baptism or church organizations.”[27]

Conclusion

Graves’ ecclesiology is rotten to the core. Even Leon McBeth couldn’t help himself; he abandoned all pretense of scholarly detachment when he wrote, “. . . the Landmark movement is best understood as a Baptist equivalent of nineteenth-century Roman Catholicism.”[28] Graves must believe what he believes about Baptist churches because his salvation is tied to his doctrine of the church. He has no historical proof to offer, only righteous indignation. I reject his position because it is so clearly influenced by his fundamental presupposition – that Baptist churches are Christ’s Kingdom.

Bibliography

Graves, James R. Old Landmarkism: What Is It? Memphis: Graves, Mahaffey & Co, 1880; Kindle reprint, First Vision Publishers, n.d.

———————. The Trilemma; Or, Death By Three Horns. Memphis: J. R. Graves and Son, 1890; reprint, Roger Williams Archive, Watertown, WI, n.d.

Christian, John T. A History of the Baptists, 2 vols. Texarkana: Bogard Press, 1922; Kindle reprint, 2013.

McBeth, H. Leon. A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage. Nashville: B&H, 1990.

———————. The Baptist Heritage. Nashville: B&H, 1987.

Ross, Bob. “Landmarkism: Unscriptural and Historically Untenable.” Central Bible Quarterly CNEQ 11:1 (Spring 1968), 2-19.

Notes

[1] James R. Graves, Old Landmarkism: What Is It? (Memphis, TN: Graves, Mahaffey & Co, 1880; Kindle reprint, First Vision Publishers, n.d.), Kindle Locations 384-387.

[2] Ibid, Kindle Locations 629-631.

[3] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1713-1714.

[4] John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists, 2 vols. (Texarkana, TX: Bogard Press, 1922; Kindle reprint, 2013), vol. 1, Kindle Locations 247-249.

[5] Ibid, Kindle Locations 577-579.

[6] Ibid, Kindle Locations 582-583. Emphasis mine.

[7] Ibid, Kindle Locations 592-593.

[8] Ibid, Kindle Locations 622-626.

[9] Ibid, Kindle Locations 585-589.

[10] Ibid, Kindle Locations 595-598.

[11] J.R. Graves, “A Statement of Landmark Principles, 1857,” in A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, ed. H. Leon McBeth (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1990), 319.

[12] Graves, Old Landmarkism, Kindle Locations 617-618.

[13] Ibid, Kindle Locations 656-658.

[14] Ibid, Kindle Locations 691-692.

[15] Ibid, Kindle Locations 2883-2884.

[16] Graves, “Landmark Principles,” 319.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Graves, Old Landmarkism, Kindle Locations 1449-1452.

[19] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1596-1598.

[20] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1688-1690.

[21] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1700-1706.

[22] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1709-1711.

[23] Ibid, Kindle Locations 1714-1721.

[24] J. R. Graves, The Trilemma; Or, Death By Three Horns (Memphis, TN: J. R. Graves and Son, 1890; reprint, Roger Williams Archive, Watertown, WI, n.d.), 119–120.

[25] Ibid, 136.

[26] Bob Ross, “Landmarkism: Unscriptural and Historically Untenable,” Central Bible Quarterly CNEQ 11:1 (Spring 1968), 5.

[27] Ibid, 11.

[28] H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1987), 459.

Unfit for Service?

Why are so many Christians, including myself, not as energetic in spreading the Gospel as we should be?

Why are we so uncaring?

Why do we not maneuver conversations with co-workers, friends and family to spiritual matters once in a while?

Why, instead, do we conspicuously try to avoid these topics?

Perhaps, as Lewis Chafer suggests, we’re simply not right with God:

. . . this Divine burden for the lost is a very uncommon experience among believers to-day ; and the solution of this problem is found in the last step that marks the movements of the ” power of God unto salvation.” The difficulty lies with the defilement of the priests before God who do not and cannot, because of their own unfitness, experience the love of God for others, or prevail with God in the holy place. [1]

Under the Mosaic Law, the priest could not approach God in an impure state, else he would be struck dead. Peter applied this privilege, and responsibility, to Christians in this dispensation:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

New Testament believers are each individual priests before God, blessed with the privilege of approaching God on our own, without a human intercessor. How seriously are we taking our responsibility to be holy? Is unconfessed and unrepentant sin a trivial, laughing matter in our lives? It shouldn’t be; an Old Testament priest would have been killed for such a permissive attitude towards God’s holiness. Perhaps if we get our own spiritual house in order, we will each experience the zeal for personal evangelism we should have.

[1] Lewis S. Chafer, True Evangelism (New York, NY: Gospel Publishing House, 1911), 130.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Is Jesus Christ God? (Pt. 1)

To answer this question, we’ll have to start by discussing what the Trinity is. Here is a brief definition:

Within the one Being that is God, there exists three eternally co-equal and co-eternal persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We do not worship three Gods; we worship one God. Each Person of the Godhead is fully God, not ⅓ God. It is so important that we understand who the God we worship is. The Trinity is one of the more misunderstood doctrines of the Christian faith; all Christians would affirm it but not too many people would really understand what it means.

Notice how carefully worded the definition above is; every single word matters. There is a reason why I stress that (1) there is one Being, (2) existing in three Persons and that these Persons are each (3) co-equal and (4) co-eternal. This will become clear in the next blog article, where I briefly explain some of the heresies through the ages, particularly the various forms of monarchism and Arianism in the 2nd-3rd centuries. These are not just dusty, old “issues” fought over by a bunch of dead men – they go to the very heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Here is a short, orthodox definition of the Trinity:

One Being or Essence (Deut 6:4; Jas 2:19)

He is not three Gods – He is One God. We must be very careful to emphasize that we do not worship three separate Gods. The distinction between the one “being” or “essence” and the three “Persons” of this one Being are only our pitiful attempts to express the inexpressible. The term “essence” is not an explicitly Biblical term, but a secular phrase which attempts to capture the concept. It is not a sacred term, but as John Frame noted, it is doubtful a better term will be found.^{^[1]}
This is not merely a partnership, whereby each member of the Godhead can sign official paperwork in the name of the firm; there is one Being consisting of three distinct Persons – each one is fully divine.

The fundamental sticking point with men who hold heretical views is this; they rightly conclude the Old Testament teaches monotheism (Deut 6:4), but then therefore assume that the New Testament cannot teach that Christ is also God. Christological heresies begin with this basic presupposition. The distinction between (1) the one Being comprised of (2) three co-equal and co-eternal, separate Persons will be made clear in our look at the Gospel of John, below. The Trinity isn’t a doctrine that can be merely explained; it must be illustrated directly from Scripture to capture the full effect.

Three Persons

Each person has a very specific role in the unity of the Godhead, and is conscious of His specific role. For example, the Father sent Christ (Jn 5:22-24). Christ, as an independent Person of the Godhead, seeks only to do the will of His Father (Jn 6:35-40). The Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son (Jn 14:15-17; 15:26-27). Each Person of the Godhead is addressed as separate, specific Persons with distinct roles, which will be seen shortly.

Just as with the term “Being,” the word “Persons” is an attempt to express Scriptural truth. It defeats the notion of modalism, where Father, Son and Spirit are merely different manifestations or modes of the one God. The word “Person” immediately brings to mind a separate, individual identity. I am different than you; we are different people. Likewise, Father, Son and Spirit are completely different Persons who comprise the one Being that is God. They must not be conflated or mistaken for one another; they are different People.

There is no inferiority of status; the Father is not #1, the Son #2 and the Spirit #3. Each Person is co-equal and co-eternal; they are each equal in dignity and have each existed eternally – there was never a time when the three Persons of the Godhead did not exist.

Why Should You Care?

So, why should we care about this doctrine? Can’t we get along just fine without really grasping what the Trinity is all about? Consider this very brief statement by a Unitarian theologian; Unitarians deny the deity of Christ in a manner similiar to Arians. Theirs is a heretical, dangerous position:

Here are several reasons why an understanding of our God is so vital for our faith:

Because He is the God We Serve!

The God the Father always works through God the Son, and the Son does His work in human hearts only through the God the Holy Spirit.^{^[2]}Revelation cannot happen without the triune Godhead. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). We can see that men are saved only by Christ and recorded divine revelation from God through the working of the Holy Spirit.

It is How We’re Saved!

God the Father planned redemption in eternity past (Eph 1:3-5), God the Son is the means of that salvation (Eph 1:9-10) and the God the Holy Spirit effectually calls sinners to repentance. The Christian Savior simply must be Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It Makes Us Christians!

The triune Godhead is the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity.^{^[3]} No false religion can compare to it; it is novel and absolutely unique. It is what makes a Christian a Christian! “To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” (Isa 40:18).

It’s How We Worship!

Christian worship is inherently Trinitarian, whether one even realizes or acknowledges it. Paul opens his epistle to the Ephesians by acknowledging the triune Godhead; “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” (Eph 1:3). Even in prayer, man “comes to God the Father, pleading the name of Christ, and is taught how to pray aright by the Holy Spirit.”^{^[4]}

Growth in Christ

God chose all who believe in Him from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4) to be saved by the work of Christ (Eph 1:7-10) and be sanctified by the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Unity

There is an unfathomable unity of purpose among the persons of the Godhead. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are never in conflict and each works with the other towards one unified, common purpose.

Walking Through the Gospel of John

For sake of time, we’ll take a brief walk (or perhaps sprint!) through key passages in the Gospel of John. I could spend much more time here, and John’s Gospel deserves more time. Do that extra study on your own and think deeply about the testimony of Scripture on this matter. Hopefully, the brief discussion here will make matters plain to you!

Prologue of John (1:1-18):

Christ and God are co-equal and co-eternal (v.1)
Christ and God are co-eternal (v.2)
Christ was the active Person of the Godhead in Creation (v.3)
Christ is our means of salvation, and this makes sense because He is God! Consider both the unity of purpose and the separate, distinct roles of each Person of the Godhead in effectually bringing about salvation of sinful men:
- God the Father planned salvation in eternity past and predestinated those who believe for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will (Eph 1:4-5)
- God the Son died in our place for our sins, as a substitutionary sacrifice. The Father laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa 53:6).
- God the Spirit effectually applies the benefits of Christ’s death to us when we believe (Eze 36:25-27).
Christ, who is co-equal and co-eternal, was “made flesh and dwelt among us.” He wasn’t a created creature or a different “mode” of God.
Christ makes the Father known to us; he is the perfect revelation of the Father, the radiance of His glory and teh exact imprint of His nature (Heb 1:3). This is why Christ can tell the Jews, “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him,” (Jn 14:7).

Christ’s Claims to Be God (Jn 5:1-18):

The Pharisees demanded to know why Christ was doing works on the Sabbath; as if a man carrying his bed was really a violation of the Sabbath according to the Old Testament!
“And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” (John 5:16-17).
- Christ’s message is very simple. God works on the Sabbath. Christ says God is His Father, therefore He too can work on the Sabbath!
The Jews, by their reaction to this saying, understood Christ was claiming to be co-equal with the Father:
- Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

Christ is Separate from God:

John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
John 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Christ is God’s Revelation to Men (Jn 6:22-29):

The Jews seek Christ after He feeds the 5,000 (v.22-25).
They sought Him for the wrong reasons (v.26)
They must not work for perishable bread, but for the Bread of Life – Christ (v.27)
- Only He can give this bread to them
- God has set His seal on the Son
The only “work” they must do to receive the Bread of Life is believe on Christ (v.28-29). He is the very revelation of God to men.

All Three Persons of Godhead Active in Salvation (Jn 6:35-51):

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day,” (John 6:44). Consider this very important verse (I beg everybody to read the entire context, and consider the implications for election, effectual calling and preservation) and follow the train of thought here:
- A man must receive Christ for salvation
- No man can come to Christ on his own
- The Father sent Christ
- A man is drawn to Christ by the Holy Spirit (Eze 36:26-27; Jn 3:5; Tit 3:5)
- The Holy Spirit does the will of the Father when He draws a sinner to Himself!

The Jews Accuse Christ of Blasphemy – Proving He Presented Himself as God:

Christ is separate from the Father, yet co-eternal with the Father
- Jn 8:31-59
  - John 8:57-59 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
  - Why did the Jews seek to kill Jesus? It was clearly because they understood Him to be claiming to be God. Whatever odd interpretation men might come up with today; Christ’s original audience understood Him perfectly well.
- Jn 10:22-42
  - John 10:25-31 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
  - Once again, consider why the Jews sought to slay Jesus – He claimed to be God!
Christ executed because of alleged blasphemy
- Jn 19:1-16
  - Jn 19:4-7 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
  - The very reason why Christ was executed was because He claimed to be God; this was the basis of the Jews’ complaint to Pilate.

Christ Accepts Worship – Which a Creature Cannot Do!

John 20:26-28 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

We’ll examine some 2nd and 3rd century heresies in the next post.

^{^[1]} John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002), 697.

^{^[2]} Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1979), 350.

^{^[3]} Ware, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, 15-16.

^{^[4]} Strong, Systematic, 349.

Works Salvation?

will-work-for-salvation

It is often claimed that James and Paul present different Gospels; that Paul advocates justification by faith and James presents a works based salvation. Well, what of this charge?

James says (2:15-26):

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Paul says:

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness (Rom 4:2-3).

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (Gal 2:16).

Here, critics claim, we find irrefutable proof that these disciples were at odds with one another. How sad it is that these skeptics persist in their unbelief, and refuse to fully examine the Scriptures. James certainly does not declare Abraham and Rahab justified by their works, but merely shows us the fruit of their authentic salvation.

God’s purpose in ordering Abraham to offer up Isaac, his only son, was to tempt or test him (Gen 22:1), not declare him righteous! When God saw that Abraham demonstrated the fruits of real faith and trust in Him, he sent an angel to stop him (Gen 22:11-12). This test was not for God, it was for Abraham.

The Old Testament told us Rahab was spared because she hid the Israelite spies sent to scout out the land (Josh 2:1; 6:17, 23, 25). The writer of Hebrews tells us it was her faith that saved her (Heb 11:31), and this revelation comes to us in that great and wonderful passage which extolls the faith of mighty men from ages gone by (Heb 11). There is no hint of justification by works.

Remember also that Paul and James were agreed on the content of the Gospel (Gal 2:1-10). It is folly to suggest this was not so; if it were, we would have evidence of some sort of major disagreement between Paul, Peter, John and James, all of whom agreed on the terms of salvation at that fateful meeting in Jerusalem (Gal 2:1-10). James’ main concern in his epistle was to exhort Christians to be useful and to explain the nature of real faith; he was not penning a systematic exposition of doctrine like Paul was in Romans. Scripture must be analyzed in its own context. James wanted Christians to be useful, therefore ” . . . faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone,” (Jas 2:17). The entire context of his epistle is that real faith produces results!

Consider John the Baptist’s words to Jews who came forth to be baptized in the Jordan River;

Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Lk 3:7-8).

John didn’t want them unless their faith was proven by deed. They were trusting in physical lineage with Abraham for salvation, and this would not do. There should be some fruit of real salvation. Paul said much the same thing in his letter to Titus when he urged the young preacher to exhort his people to be ready to perform good works.

This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men (Titus 3:8).

How much clearer can it be? Works save nobody, but they are the fruit of saving faith. Paul, like James, was concerned that Christians not be “unfruitful” in their walk with the Lord;

And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful (Titus 3:14).

It is clear that these men do not present different Gospels at all. They agreed on the content of the Gospel. They both emphasized that works are the proper fruit of salvation. John the Baptist agreed with them. And, by the way, Christ agreed with them all:

For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit (Lk 6:43).

A man is known by his fruits, for good or bad. I pray that those confused men and women who believe in works salvation come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The Riches of His Grace!

Ephesians 2:1-9 is a very frank look at what God saved Christians from and about who we really are as people. Are we good people who need help from God? Or, are we rebellious sinners in desperate need of a Savior? For non-Christians, this is a sobering and honest look at sin and their need for Christ. For Christians, this is a reminder of what we’re saved from, and a rebuke to live for God like we ought to. I hope you find you find this little study helpful!

WHO WE REALLY ARE (Eph 2:1-3):

Eph 2:1 – And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

ezekiels-vision-valley-of-dry-bones.jpg.crop_display

Right up front, without any preamble, Paul reminds the Christians in Ephesus that they used to be “dead in trespasses and sins,” (Eph 2:1). This is who we are without Christ; not physically dead but spiritually dead. This runs counter to what we want to believe about ourselves. We want to believe we’re “good” people.

However, what standard, or benchmark, are people using when they describe themselves as “good people?” Who says murder is wrong? Who says stealing purses from old ladies is a bad thing? Who says marriage is a sacred covenant, or agreement, between a man and a woman? Who says it is morally wrong to be unfaithful to your spouse? Without an anchor of som

e sort, some objective benchmark to ground morality and human “goodness,” then we’re left with a purely subjective mess.

Scripture teaches that all of creation was made by God, and more specifically that men and women are made in God’s image (Gen 1:27-28). Being His creatures, God’s standard is the benchmark for morality and behavior. Scripture teaches us that we’re not good people. Our entire concept of human morality is built on God’s word (Rom 2:14-15). God’s word tells us we’re dead in trespasses and sins without Christ.

Again, this isn’t something people like to hear. Many Christians like to deny the idea of “total depravity,” typically out of a sinful desire for autonomy from God or as a visceral reaction against what they perceive as Calvinism. As theologian Michael Horton wrote, “. . . pelagianism is the natural religion of humanity!” [1] Even compromising Christian counselors deny this doctrine. For example, one prominent Christian counselor boldly declares that his end-goal when assisting people through crisis is to restore self-esteem and instill more self-reliance in the individual! [2] He even goes so far as to declare:

“Jesus’ ministry was one of helping people achieve fullness of life and assisting them in developing their ability to deal with the problems, conflicts and burdens in life.” [3]

It is difficult to imagine a more un-Biblical and ridiculous concept of Christ’s ministry. So much for repenting and believing in the Gospel (Mk 1:15)! Self-reliance is what doomed Adam and Eve in the Garden; they chose to follow their desires over God’s command. This has been man’s natural state ever since (Rom 5:12-21); we don’t want to rely on God, we want to rely on ourselves.

Consider what Paul wrote in the Book of Romans:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse,” (Rom 1:18-21).

We can see from Paul’s words that knowledge of God is everywhere, but men hold back, crush down and suppress this truth in unrighteousness. We don’t want to acknowledge that God is there, because then we’re accountable for what he says. Paul went on to paint a clear picture of all people, Jew and Gentile, knowing the truth about God but glorifying themselves instead:

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened,” (Rom 1:21).

Also, remember the testimony of Romans 3:9-18, where Paul once again explains the spiritual plight of any unregenerate person, Jew or Gentile. Pay particular attention to these two verses:

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one,” (Rom 3:10).

“There is no fear of God before their eyes,” (Rom 3:18).

People are not wandering around, desperately seeking God. Spiritual things are foolish to them. I can recall my own father chiding me with a knowing smile when I was on my way to church one Sunday morning,

“Go ahead and go to church,” he said wistfully. “You’ll soon see there’s nothing to all that nonsense. I figured it out. You will too.”

Paul’s words stand true here; “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” (1 Cor 2:14). The fact that any man does seek God is evidence of the Holy Spirit working in your heart

This is what “dead” in trespasses and sins means. It means that unsaved, unregenerate rebel sinners are spiritual corpses. A dead body cannot rise up again! I was a Military Police officer for 10 years and saw many dead bodies in the course of duty; I can assure you none of those bodies was capable of rising up and walking away. They were dead. This is our spiritual condition without Christ; dead and gone without any hope in the world. It means knowing God is there and pushing that knowledge away, crushing it under false hopes, cynicism, etc. Knowing this makes us accountable for our own sin. Our inherent sin places an unbridgeable gap between us and God. Christ came to fill this gap and save sinners who don’t even want to be saved.

Eph 2:2 – Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Paul continues describing the spiritual state of the Ephesian Christians before their salvation. This also describes modern Christians before they were saved by Christ. It describes you right now if you have not been saved by Christ.

People without Christ walk “according to the prince of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.” Christians used to act this way, and were formerly energized and influenced by Satan. Numerous places in Scripture testify that this “prince of the power of the air” is most certainly Satan himself. In Jn 12:31, Christ discloses that by His death on the cross, Satan will be eventually cast out. His hold on people will be broken. [4] Likewise, in Jn 16:11, Christ comforts His disciples and promises to send the Holy Spirit as a Counselor or Helper for them after He ascended to the Father. Christ explained the role of the Holy Spirit in a Christian’s life, and said the Holy Spirit convicts men of judgment, because “the prince of this world is judged.”

What Paul says about Satan’s activity is so very important. Satan is “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Notice that Paul describes unsaved, rebellious men and women as “children of disobedience.” The natural man is inherently rebellious against God. Satan is active and working in the lives of people who are unsaved and “the whole world lieth in wickedness,” (1 Jn 5:19). He does the same in a Christian’s life. The critical difference is that a Christian doesn’t belong to him anymore.

Romans 6 brings this out quite clearly. A person belongs in either one of two spiritual spheres; to Satan or God. People are by nature “children of disobedience” and belong to Satan without saving faith in Christ. After salvation, a person’s headship or spiritual ownership transfers to God. This is a legal, forensic decision by Christ to declare believers righteous when He is under no obligation to do so! Do you belong to Satan or God today?

Eph 2:3 – Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Paul goes on, describing our actions before salvation. Our “conversation” (or daily conduct) was about the lusts of the flesh. There was little to no thought about God’s standards, our own sin, and repentance for that sin. We lived our own lives for ourselves, not for God who created us. Our goal was to fulfill our own desires of the flesh and the mind. We know when bad and sinful things pop into our minds. We’ve all acted on some of these thoughts and made mistakes we’ve regretted and done things we’re not proud of. All of us know our hearts, and realize we’re sinful people. We all know about this gap between us and God.

Again, Paul makes no apologies for portraying men and men as the rebellious sinners they are. He writes that we are “by nature the children of wrath.” We are born as rebellious sinners, suppressing the truth and knowledge of God. It is our natural state. You and I weren’t born with a disposition to obey God and worship Him as Lord! We were born with a disposition to sinful thoughts and actions, which are opposed to God in every possible way!

“For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not,” (Ecc 7:20).

This doesn’t mean that unsaved people aren’t nice people who do nice things. It does mean that, because of our rebellious, sinful nature, nothing we do gains us any points with God in any way.[5] It is a matter of perspective. It’s a matter of standards.

“Depravity as a doctrine does not stand or fall on the ground of man’s estimation of himself; it rather reflects God’s estimation of man.” [6]

By our own standards, I like to think I’m a pretty good guy. By God’s standard, I’m a rebellious sinner. We’re not sinners by our actions; we’re sinners by our very nature. This encompasses both thoughts and actions.

WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US (Eph 2:4-6):

Eph 2:4 – But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 – Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6 – And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Heart_of_Stone_by_TheComicFan — In salvation, God changes our rebellious hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

Think about the significance of this small word, “but.” [7] God is “rich in mercy.” He didn’t have to provide a way of salvation for us, but He did anyway. He was not obligated to do this. Our just punishment for rebellion is instant destruction. So many Christians have a small conception of our just and Holy God. They emphasize God’s love, but denigrate His holiness and terribly underestimate the depths of human sinfulness. This salvation He provided showed the “great love” He has for us. This is undeserved love. Because we’re spiritually dead to God, His love is shown by the fact that He even bothered with us in the first place.[8] Again, salvation in Christ transfers us from one category to another – from Satan’s control to God’s control. Sin no longer has absolute dominion over a Christian; this is a promise unbelievers cannot claim as their own:

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace,” (Rom 6:14).

What does this tell us about God? He is holy, loving and just. We are sinful, rebellious and undeserving people. We should praise His name in every aspect of our lives.

Paul writes that this salvation in Christ “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Eph 2:6). He is reminding the Ephesians, and us, about where our future home is. We are strangers and pilgrims on this earth (1 Pet 2:11), ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20). This world is not our eternal home; our hope is beyond this temporal world:

“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself,” (Phil 3:20-21).

If we call ourselves Christians, we ought to act and think like it! We don’t have to bring sacrifices to an altar as an offering for God anymore; the ceremonial law has passed away in this dispensation. Instead, Paul tell us our reasonable service is to offer ourselves to God (Rom 12:1). This is the only proper response to the glorious gift of salvation.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,” (Rom 12:1).

God desires to be worshipped in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24). Our duty is to try our level best to fulfill this calling, looking forward to glorious eternity when we can do so, without possibility of sin.

WHY HE DID IT (Eph 2:7-9):

Eph 2:7 – That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

For-His-Glory

Paul reminds us what God’s entire purpose in human history is. Some people believe the main point, or synopsis, of Scripture is that God saves us from sin. This is man-centered thinking and it is terribly wrong. It isn’t about us; it’s about Him. The entire arc of Scripture is about God bringing about His kingdom for His glory.

Christ’s sacrifice for sinners demonstrated His great love. But what was the point of Christ’s sacrifice? Why did God provide a way of salvation and elect to save anybody at all? For our sake? Surely not! He did it so that it would glorify His name and lead a grateful and undeserving people to worship Him the way we ought to have done all along – the way He deserves to be worshipped. Consider the following Scripture passages which plainly show that God works in human history for His own glory, not our own:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise,” (Isa 43:19-21). Isaiah is speaking once again of the future restoration of Israel, for His own sake.

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins,” (Isa 43:25). God promises to restore Israel and blot out her former sins for His sake, not theirs.

“And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified,” (Isa 49:3). This is an excerpt from one of the so-called Servant Songs in Isaiah, describing the future work of Christ the Messiah. It is clear that Christ’s work will glorify the Father, not men.

“Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went,” (Eze 36:22). Again, this shows why God will act in the future to restore Israel.

Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and our salvation isn’t about us. It’s about God, and the honor and glory due to Him. So few Christians have any idea what the phrase “grace of God” even means. To them, Jesus is a Sunday School character sitting on a green field, surrounded by fluffy white sheep with a child on His lap and a dove floating above Him in the sky! Christians must be committed to really deepen their faith and move beyond crayon Christianity and really understand and appreciate who God is, and reorient our lives to show it.

Eph 2:8 – For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 – Not of works, lest any man should boast.

We are saved by grace through faith, which is unmerited or undeserved favor. Salvation is a gift from God, and Christians did not earn or deserve this gift in any way. I’ll turn from Ephesians at this point, and briefly discuss what the Gospel actually is. I’ve referenced it enough in this little paper, and it must be heard.

THE GOSPEL:

I believe there is one verse from the Gospel of Mark that is the clearest, most comprehensive passage on salvation in the Scripture:

“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel,” (Mk 1:14-15).

This is the simplest Gospel verse in the Bible. Salvation isn’t a fast food menu where anybody can pick what they like. You can’t pick and choose from a potpourri of man-made religions, choose whichever suits you best and receive your own version of salvation when you roll forward to the pick-up window. God does not present an inclusivist view in Scripture:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” (Jn 14:6).
“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12).

Salvation entails both repentance and belief, or saving faith. Repentance means a change of mind (1 Thess 1:9). This involves a turn away from sin (Heb 6:1; Rev 9:21) and towards God (Acts 20:21). It is also so much more than mere regret.[9] Repentance is genuine sorrow for one’s sin, accompanied by a resolution to turn from it. It is sorrow for one’s sin because of the wrong done to God and the hurt inflicted upon Him. In other words, there must be a real alteration of the inner person. This is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in men’s hearts; Ezekiel described this process as God changing a heart of stone to a heart of flesh (Eze 11:19-20).

Salvation is also about believing in the Gospel, placing saving faith in Christ. Saving faith is understanding what Christ did for you in an intellectual and emotional way, and acting on it. It is more than some cold, intellectual understanding. “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble,” (Jas 2:19).

It does include intellectual understanding (e.g. “Christ is the Son of God!”). However, it also includes emotional understanding (e.g. “Christ died for my sins!”). And finally, it is voluntary action (“I will trust Christ as my Lord and Savior!”).

We cannot save ourselves. Dead people can’t do much of anything. Dead men can’t cooperate with God in salvation, in some kind of ridiculous synergistic fashion. We are totally dependent on the grace of God for our salvation, and I wish more preachers would bring this marvelous truth out. Praise Him that He provided Christ for sinners. He didn’t have to.

———————————————————————————————–

1. Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims Along on Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 561.

2. H. Norman Wright, The Complete Guide to Crisis & Trauma Counseling: What To Do And Say When It Matters Most! (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2011), 183.

3. Ibid, 24.

4. Edwin A. Blum, John, in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. John Walvoord and Roy Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1983), 318. “The Cross was also the means of Satan’s defeat. The prince of this world, Jesus said, will be driven out. His power over people by sin and death was defeated and they can now be delivered out of his domain of spiritual darkness and slavery to sin.”

5. Lewis S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1976), 7:119. “Theologians employ the phrase total depravity, which does not mean that there is nothing good in any unregenerate person as seen by himself or other people; it means that there is nothing in fallen man which God can find pleasure in or accept.” Emphasis mine.

6. Ibid, 2:219.

7. Grateful for this insight to John Phillips, Exploring Ephesians & Philippians (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1993), 63.

8. Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians, in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. John Walvoord and Roy Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1983), 623. “Since sinners are spiritually dead toward God, they have nothing to commend them to God. This is why Paul described this love as being ‘great.’ ”

9. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 950.

Musings on theology, apologetics, practical Christianity and God's grace in salvation through Jesus Christ

Share this:

Footnotes:

Share this:

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT:

#1 – BECAUSE GOD HAS GIVEN YOU A HOME! (V.1):

#2 – BECAUSE GOD CHOSE TO SAVE YOU (VV.2-3):

#3 – YOUR SALVATION IS SECURE! (V.4-5):

#4 – ALL THIS IS WHY YOU CAN KEEP GOING (VV.6-9):

#5 – YOU KNOW MORE THAN DAVID AND MOSES DID (VV.10-12):

CONCLUSION:

Footnotes:

Share this:

What Saith Baptists?

What is a Baptist?

The Struggle for Purity – Separatist Groups

The Novatians

The Donatists

The Medieval Era

The Anabaptists

Conclusion

Notes

Share this:

Introduction

Basic Teachings of Landmarkism

#1 – The Churches and the Kingdom are the Same

#2 – Baptist Churches are the Only True Churches in the World

#3 – The True Church is a Local, Visible Institution

#4 – There Must Be No “Pulpit Affiliation” With Non-Baptists

#5 – Only a Church Can Do Churchly Acts

#6 – Baptist Churches Have Always Existed in Every Age by an Unbroken Historical Succession

Implications of the Landmark Position

Conclusion

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

One Being or Essence (Deut 6:4; Jas 2:19)

Three Persons

Why Should You Care?

Because He is the God We Serve!

It is How We’re Saved!

It Makes Us Christians!

It’s How We Worship!

Growth in Christ

Unity

Walking Through the Gospel of John

Christ’s Claims to Be God (Jn 5:1-18):

Christ is Separate from God:

All Three Persons of Godhead Active in Salvation (Jn 6:35-51):

The Jews Accuse Christ of Blasphemy – Proving He Presented Himself as God:

Christ Accepts Worship – Which a Creature Cannot Do!

Share this:

Share this:

WHO WE REALLY ARE (Eph 2:1-3):

WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US (Eph 2:4-6):

WHY HE DID IT (Eph 2:7-9):

THE GOSPEL:

Share this: