the particular baptist
pactum serva
- Nov 14, 2008
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It's an overdone topic.
The traditional Baptism as practice by the Jews is interesting.
Well, not really. As the citation from Schaeffer pointed out.Mike, the other passages shed the light necessary to conclude that only believers were immersed.
Well, there are good and necessary consequences of baptizing infants, right? You'd have children as members of Christ's Body, the church -- right? Does Scripture ever address children as if they're members of the church?It is plain as day for me. Whats not really plain is the good and necessary consequence by which infant sprinkling is called baptism. Again, not a single verse.
Cite one plain statement that only confessing believers were baptized. Where's the exclusion of people with no confession of their belief, in any familial baptism? Where's it in any group baptism, where infants would not be handed to passersby?Not so Mike. Every New Testament passage plainly says believers were immersed.
The historical evidence is fully contrary to this allegation.The word means immersed when referring to the Ordinance and who it was administered to.
Why would there be a difference? And where is Scripture specifying that there's a difference?I concede that when the word comes up not related to the Ordinance.
But that's really the problem: it's not said. It's not stated either way in Scripture. It's not stated explicitly in the case of family baptisms. And that makes the situation kind of odd for credobaptists, granted the large households of children and slaves and servants in ancient times (and by oikos, that's exactly what's meant by "household"). You could declare that something is implicitly happening with baptizing those households, where only carefully-examined believers are being baptized. But that'd be implicit. Plus, you'd be presuming a number of remarkably unhistorical expectations are occurring.This is the good and necessary consequence argument and i dont see it. I see believers baptized because in every instance its what the text says.
For a teen, the general perception is that they're mature enough to answer for themselves. For a pre-teen, yes, we'd baptize a household if the head of household requested it.Just out of curiosity would the presbyterian church baptise a teenager or pre-teen simply because their parents are Christians?
Just out of curiosity would the presbyterian church baptise a teenager or pre-teen simply because their parents are Christians?
WEBSTER’S NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY defines Reformed as "pertaining to or designating the body of Protestant churches originating in the Reformation." The RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE defines the Reformation as "the religious movement in the sixteenth century which had for its object the reform of the Roman Catholic Church and which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches."
First, it is not proper to refer to Baptists as Reformed
BECAUSE OF WHAT BAPTISTS BELIEVE ABOUT GOD’S WORD.The motto of the Protestant Reformation included the Latin words Sola Scriptura which mean the Scriptures only. In seeking to reform the Roman Catholic Church the Reformers at first insisted that the only authority for faith and practice was the Scriptures, but the Reformers never consistently followed this motto...The Reformers have kept many doctrines and practices from Catholicism such as infant baptism, baptismal regeneration, sprinkling for baptism, and sacraments. Baptists have sought to avoid such man-made traditions as these, and to follow instead the New Testament pattern. The Westminster Confession of Faith is the most prominent of the Reformed confessions. The London Confession of 1689 is one of the most prominent Baptist confessions. The glaring difference between the two is seen at the very beginning. The Baptist confession says, "The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience." This sentence does not appear in the Reformed Westminster Confession.
Secondly. Baptists cannot properly be called Reformed
BECAUSE OF WHAT BAPTISTS BELIEVE ABOUT THE CHURCH.Baptists have always held that there can be no proper standard for what constitutes the church, but the one set forth in the New Testament, and that the New Testament is not vague or indefinite concerning the church, either as to what it is or where it came from or how it is to be governed. Baptists agree with the New Testament that the church is a congregation of believers which has been called out of the world and assembles around Jesus Christ and His Word. For Baptists the church is a visible congregation of regenerated, baptized individuals. To the Reformers in the sixteenth century the Roman Catholic Church was still "the church," and it only needed reforming. They sought to reform a church which they, regarded as the true body of Christ. They assumed that both the baptism, and the ordination of the Roman Church were still valid. Neither John Calvin nor any other Reformers denounced their Catholic baptisms. The Reformers did not set out to restore the true church by copying the instructions revealed in Acts. Instead they worked to reform the "church" which already existed.
Thirdly, Baptists cannot properly be called Reformed
BECAUSE OF WHAT BAPTISTS BELIEVE ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP
OF CHURCH AND STATE.
The Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith said in its article titled "The Civil Magistrate," "...he hath authority and it is his duty to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever transacted in them be according to the mind of God..." In the new American nation, in the late 1700’s, this Reformed concept of church and state, which was held by the Puritans, was emphatically rejected. The article in the Westminster Confession had to be revised for Americans after the nation established the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Donatists did not see the Constantinian arrangements as a victory for Christianity, but as a perversion of the Scripture’s teachings, and ultimately, as "the fall of the church." In the time of the Reformation 1,200 years later, the Anabaptists would have nothing to do with a state church. This was one of the main reasons for their separation from Calvin, Luther and the other Reformers. The Reformers often referred to the Anabaptists as Donatists or Neo-Donatists because the Donatists had opposed this marriage of church and state 1.200 years before the Reformation.
Baptists believe with the New Testament that the civil magistrate has no right to require a form of religion for us or to punish us for not following the religion he requires. Baptists believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of the church and Lord of the state, but that he does not rule the state through the church nor the church through the state. We believe that the state can never compel men to believe the truth. Only the Holy Spirit’s quickening work can compel men to do this. Baptists believe that Christians are citizens of two realms: an earthly realm which is ruled over by man, for both the saved and the unsaved, and a heavenly kingdom ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ, We base this partly on the words of our Lord in Matthew 22:17 and 21. For Baptists the church and the world are basically separate and antagonistic to each other. Baptists have no thought and no desire for uniting the two, and Baptists have never been the state religion anywhere. The attitude which a person has toward the Constantinian arrangements reveals whether he is Reformed or Baptist in what he believes about the church. Reformed people see the Constantinian change as a victory for Christianity. Baptists see it as the fall of the church. It is clear that the Reformers did not believe in their motto of Sola Scriptura when it came to renouncing the Constantinian arrangements at the time of the Reformation.
Fourthly, it is not proper to call Baptists Reformed
BECAUSE OF WHAT BAPTISTS BELIEVE ABOUT BAPTISM.The Reformers sprinkle for baptism just like the Catholic Church does. They brought this unscriptural practice with them from Catholicism. At the time of the Reformation, and even today, the Reformers admitted that immersion was the practice of the churches in the New Testament, but they sprinkle for baptism anyway. Reformed people tell us that sprinkling is as good as dipping for baptism, but Baptists ask, "Will you please show us that in the Scriptures?" The Reformers practice infant baptism. They brought this with them from the Catholic Church. Reformed people say all Christian parents should have their babies sprinkled. Baptists ask, "Will you please show us that in the Scriptures?" There is not a trace of infant baptism to be found in the New Testament. Scriptural, New Testament baptism is adult baptism. Nothing more clearly departs from the New Testament model than infant baptism. Baptists rejected these errors, and insist on believers baptism and baptism by immersion only, and we will not accept sprinklings or baptisms of infants as scriptural baptisms. Baptists demand that those who come desiring to join us from Reformed denominations which practice these errors be rebaptized or scripturally baptized. This is where we got our name Anabaptists. It means rebaptizers. Later the name was shortened to just Baptists.
Finally, it is not proper to call Baptists Reformed
BECAUSE OF THE UNCHRISTIAN WAY THE REFORMED HAVE TREATEDThe story of Baptists is a story written in blood. Not only did they suffer terribly under Roman Catholic tyranny before the Reformation, they were equally persecuted and slaughtered by the Protestant Reformers. The Reformers actually hated the Baptists because Baptists insisted that the only rule of faith and practice for the churches is God’s Word. The Reformers could not argue with this, and what they could not destroy with arguments they sought to destroy with force. The Reformers unleashed a bitter and bloody persecution of Baptists because of Baptists’ insistence on a consistent application of Sola Scriptura to the church and to baptism. History shows that the leading Reformers shed Baptist blood as freely as did the Roman Catholics, once they achieved the power to enforce their edicts. Calvin himself had many bitter things to say about the Anabaptists, calling them furious madmen, frenzied spirits, insane and barbarous men, idiots, and ignorant. He called their teachings delirious dreams, stupidity, mad bedlams and the vomit of a drunkard. In his work titled "Against The Anabaptists," Calvin said, "Last of all like as a drunkard after he hath well belched doth disgorge the vile broth which charged his stomach, even so these wicked men, after they have detracted this holy estate which the Lord hath so much honored, finally with full throat they do spew out exceeding deformed blasphemies." Thomas Armitage, the Baptist historian, refers to these statements by Calvin and other Reformers as "Anti-Baptist fits." Baptists were not part of the Reformation. They were victims of it. Baptists believe with the Scriptures that all persecution for the sake of religion is radically wrong, and it is a fact that Baptists have never persecuted others, but have always been persecuted themselves.
BAPTISTS THROUGH THE CENTURIES.
So then, are Baptists Reformed? The answer of both God’s Word and of history is, No, Baptists are not Reformed, and when a Baptist identifies himself as Reformed he is saying something he doesn’t really mean. The connotations of the term Reformed convey theological positions which are contrary to the Baptist position. Hopefully what most Baptists who call themselves Reformed mean is only that they have the same view of salvation as the Reformers. They believe in the doctrines of God’s Sovereign grace. Some modern-day Baptists have come to see the biblical doctrines of grace by reading the Reformers and Puritans. In doing so they have also swallowed the Reformed teachings concerning the church. Baptists should accept the doctrines of Gods grace, but at the same time reject Reformed teachings about the church which are not based in God’s Word. Think about it! Whenever a person calls himself Reformed he is actually recognizing a connection in the past with the Roman Catholic Church because the Reformers came out of that false church. Why should Baptists seek to identify with baby sprinklers, while teaching immersion themselves as the right way of baptism? It is hard to understand how Baptists who were hated and persecuted by Calvin. Luther and other Reformers could now want to be called Reformed themselves. Why should Baptists identify with the Reformers who along with the Catholics are responsible for the blood of thousands of Baptist martyrs? To call a Baptist church Reformed is confusion to those who know God’s Word and a little about history. The term "Reformed Baptist" is an oxymoron, a self contradictory term. One cannot be Reformed and Baptist at the same time as we have defined Reformed and Baptist beliefs in this message. In closing I want to say that the Scriptures nowhere call for a Reformation of the false church. Instead the Scripture says in Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
Anyone ever think that the original intent of the word "immerse" was to become a part of the full faith?
Immersed in FAITH by Salvation, not water?
Just throwing it out there.
Reformed Baptists are the Baptists that can drink.
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