Tag: theology

Book Review: First Freedom

Jason Duesing, Thomas White, and Malcolm Yarnell III have compiled a series of essays from various contributors that collectively offer the reader an introductory and yet wide-ranging look at the subject of religious liberty. They have done a commendable job, and the result is a helpful introduction (even if disjointed in some places).

Jason G. Duesing, Thomas White, and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, eds., First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Liberty, Second (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016).

Introduction

Jason Duesing, Thomas White, and Malcolm Yarnell III have compiled a series of essays from various contributors that collectively offer the reader an introductory and yet wide-ranging look at the subject of religious liberty. This volume is the second edition, published in 2016 (the first was published in 2007), and the opening acknowledgements celebrate the collaborative efforts of “three seminaries, one university, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission [of the Southern Baptist Convention], and a Baptist publishing house.” [1] Each author offers his particular expertise to “provide an introductory look at the biblical and historical beginnings of religious liberty” as well as some descriptions of “its contemporary expression and defense.”[2] Throughout this volume there is also an emphasis on the historical “price that was paid” by “Baptist brothers and sisters” in the past “for the establishment and defense of religious liberty.”[3]

The book is divided into three successive sections – a historical section, a pedagogical one, and a final one that promotes activity and strategies for the reader. Of course, there is an overlap of the subject matter and methodologies in each distinct section, and each chapter is written as an essay that may stand alone, but the editors have aimed at these categories for readability and logical progression. One of the weaknesses of a book like this, however – one that compiles essays from various authors – is that it is difficult to provide the reader with a consistent and coherent argument throughout the book. Duesing, White, and Yarnell have done a commendable job, and the result is a helpful introduction (even if disjointed in some places) to the concept of religious liberty from a Baptist perspective.

Book Summary

Part One

Part one of this volume offers a brief look at some versions of religious liberty as they appear in history. Both Paige Patterson (then president and professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) and Thomas White (president and professor of systematic theology at Cedarville University) highlighted the historic Anabaptist emphasis on a form of religious liberty that certainly was echoed among English and American Baptists. These two authors did not address whether there is a genuine historical connection between Swiss and German Anabaptists and later Baptists in England and America, but they did make note of the common Anabaptist theme of religious liberty. Patterson and White seem to imply that there is a strong theological and philosophical connection (and maybe even a historical one?) between Anabaptists and Baptists on the doctrine of religious liberty, and this deserves to be addressed more clearly than what we are offered in these chapters devoted to providing the historical background. And yet, while this historical ground is contentious and shaky, the point remains that Anabaptists were chronologically the forerunners of later religious liberty proponents.

In the third chapter, suppling yet more historical background, Malcolm Yarnell (then professor of systematic theology, directory of the Oxford study program, director of the Center for Theological Research, and chair of the systematic theology department at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) claimed that there are two traditions of early American political theology. The “major tradition” he called the “Virginia tradition,” and the “minor tradition” he called the “South Carolina tradition.”[4] Both are prominent streams of Baptist thought and argumentation, so Yarnell himself admited that the “minor” and “major” labels are not to so easy to assign. And yet there does seem to be a clearly recognizable difference between the Virginia and the South Carolina traditions.

Yarnell said the Virginia tradition is “identified with the rhetoric of John Leland, the agitation of the Danbury Baptist Association, and the subsequent separation doctrine in the federal judiciary.”[5] Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson, and Hugo Black (though Jefferson and Black were not Baptists) all played their part in establishing and perpetuating the Virginia tradition of religious liberty, which is marked by an “emphasis on human and the separation of church and state.”[6] William Screven, Oliver Hart, and Richard Furman (as well as other contemporaries and theological descendants of these men) played their part in promoting and institutionalizing the South Carolina tradition of religious liberty, which is perceived through the “lenses” of “divine Providence, human constitutionality, and social orderliness.”[7]In the end, Yarnell, White, and Patterson all urged the reader to strive for a better imperfect system until the perfect comes at the arrival of King Jesus.

Part Two

Part two of this book is intended to be pedagogical. Three more authors seem focused on giving the reader a definition, an explanation, and a strategy to engage the world around with the doctrine of religious liberty. This section is important for obvious reasons, one might even say that it ought to be the core contribution of such a book, but it is quite disappointing in its delivery. Barrett Duke (then vice president for public policy and research at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention) contributed the least helpful and most digressive chapter of this book. The title suggests that Duke will offer a definition of religious liberty (The Christian Doctrine of Religious Liberty), but he did not.[8] What he advanced instead was an entirely new set of arguments (i.e., natural law, social, and theological) that are separated from the historical background we were given in the first three chapters. Even the theological arguments Duke presented are disconnected from the ones that were forwarded by historic Baptists (i.e., two kingdoms, jurisdictions of the church and state, etc.), and the reader is left wondering what doctrine of religious liberty Duke was arguing for.

The closest Duke came to providing a definition in his chapter was a list of “three useful categories of religious freedom,” which he borrowed from Philip Wogaman.[9] These are (1) “absolute religious liberty” or “the internal freedom to believe and worship as one pleases,” (2) “qualified absolute religious liberty” or “the freedom to profess or to express one’s faith verbally,” and (3) “qualified religious liberty” or “the freedom to act in accordance with one’s religious insights and values.”[10] But even here, Duke did not make it clear which (if any) of these he believed to be definitional of religious liberty, and he implied that any of the three might be warranted in various circumstances.[11] In conclusion to Duke’s chapter, he simply cited Article XVII of the Baptist Faith and Message (on Religious Liberty) without explanation or comment. This article certainly is a definition of religious liberty, but Duke did not serve the reader well by neglecting to articulate how the article connects to the rest of his chapter, what the article means in practice, or why it is part of the confession of faith for Southern Baptists.

Evan Lenow (then assistant professor of ethics, Bobby L. and Janis Eklund Chair of Stewardship, director of the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement, director of the Center for Biblical Stewardship, and chair of the ethics department of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) contributed the second of these core chapters, and his is slightly better than Duke’s. Lenow took up his pen to explain why religious liberty is a means to an end. It is the freedom of believing citizens to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ without fear of state-sanctioned or state-allowed reprisals. Churches and their numerous members, and not the state or its citizens, are responsible to evangelize the world. And religious liberty provides a free platform from which to carry out this function. Lenow did, in fact, assert and defend this perspective, even though he did make a couple of minor historical errors.[12]

Like Patterson and White (in Part One), Lenow also strongly implied that the Baptists in America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were directly influenced by the Anabaptists in sixteenth-century Europe. And what is more, Lenow presented a truncated selection of Baptist representatives from America – the first two perceived even by their contemporaries as idiosyncratic outliers among Baptists in America – Roger Williams, John Leland, and Edgar Mullins. There is no doubt that all three of these men have had a significant impact on the Baptist views of religious liberty, but they are hardly the only influential voices on the subject, and they all represent what Yarnell called the “Virginia tradition” of Baptists in his earlier chapter. The “South Carolina tradition” is absent in Lenow’s historical summary, and this is the sort of disjointedness that seems almost inevitable in a volume with multiple contributors with varying perspectives of their own.

The third chapter of this middle section was authored by Andrew Walker (then director of policy studies for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention), and his contribution is far better in both substance and form than the other two. Walker’s chapter is also lacking an explicit definition of religious liberty, though one assumes that Walker ought to have been able to depend upon Duke to provide such a thing in his own chapter. But the reader can piece together a functional definition from what Walker asserts near the end of his chapter. He says religious liberty is “like a lineman who clears the way for a running back,” it is “a small state and a large church,” and a kind of religious “pluralism.”[13] With greater clarity, Walker says, “religion and politics must inexorably relate to one another. The exercise of religion requires nothing more and nothing less than a legal order that does not co-opt religion for state purposes nor impede the church’s mission.”[14] Such a description of various features of religious liberty does indeed provide a functional definition. 

Walker’s chapter is most concerned, however, not with defining religious liberty, but with exploring the relationship between religious liberty and the public square. For this purpose, Walker did provide a definition of the public square: “a matrix and amalgamation of cultural forces that provide a horizon of meaning for public life… In short, the public square is a function of our shared interaction within the institutions of culture.”[15] And our shared interaction within the institutions of our present culture is changing dramatically, says Walker. Two specific features of the moral revolution that has taken place are (1) the “clash of orthodoxies” between the LGBTQ+ advocates and traditional Christians and (2) the presumption on the part of non-religious people in American culture that religious adherents have bad or nefarious motives for clinging to their ethical standards.[16]

Walker provided arguments for a paradigm shift, for the adoption of various strategies, and for a comprehensive proposal. The paradigm shift he urged the reader to embrace is to view “religious liberty as hospitality and… as accommodation.”[17] The sort of accommodation Walker promoted is one of religious pluralism, where all citizens seek understanding and give respect to those with whom they may disagree. The strategies Walker presented generally call for a return to the “ethos and intellectual milieu that birthed American principles, namely, natural rights.”[18] Ultimately, the rights of citizens will be grounded in something that transcends government, or they will merely be decided and distributed by government itself. Walker claimed that the natural rights argument is a common-ground approach for Christians to contend for pre-political rights that are endowed by our Creator. And, finally, Walker’s proposal is an invitation (even an urging) for some Christians to commit themselves to political and public engagement for the sake of gospel and ecclesiastical advancement in American culture. Like missionary sponsors in the nineteenth century, public advocates today can “hold the ropes for those who labor to plant churches, evangelize, and equip the body of Christ.”[19]

Andrew Walker’s chapter serves as a foundation and a pivot point for this book. As I mentioned earlier, Duke and Lenow contributed chapters that should have offered more substance, but they largely failed to provide anything significant or unique in their chapters or to meaningfully develop the theme of religious liberty in a cohesive way with the rest of the authors. Walker, on the other hand, did some of their work for them as well as his own. And his own work was to urge the reader to public engagement of some sort, even if only as an understanding and hospitable neighbor. Though Walker certainly hoped for more from some of his readers. 

Part Three

The remaining section (Part three) and its four chapters provide the reader with a summary of several challenges to religious liberty, which have only become more apparent since the publication of this book. In chapter seven, Russell Moore (then president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention) argued for a gospel and ecclesiastical emphasis in “the Baptist struggle for religious freedom.”[20] American Evangelicals may indeed vote largely as a block, but they need not primarily think of themselves as a political interest group. The Baptist interest in religious liberty, from the beginning, is centered on the meaning of Christian salvation and the doctrine of the church. Therefore, says Moore, we must maintain a “firm grasp of the gospel,” and we must “protect the centrality of the church.”[21]

Albert Mohler (president and Joseph Emerson Brown professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) contributed chapter eight, which offers yet more data and commentary on the clash between religious liberty and sexual freedom in American culture. Earlier in the book, Duke only touched this subject and Walker addressed it a bit more thoroughly, but Mohler here advanced his thesis: “we now face an inevitable conflict of liberties,”[22] and “if we lose religious liberty, all other liberties will be lost, one by one.”[23] According to Mohler, “Human rights and human dignity are temporary abstractions if they are severed from their reality as gifts of the Creator.”[24] Thus, the state must recognize a moral standard above itself, or it will become a capricious enforcer of whatever moral regime may wield its authority. Mohler’s chapter did point to the horizon and help the reader see the gathering storm, but he did not offer much in the way of a call to specific action.

Thomas White made a second appearance, in chapter nine, having specific expertise as a Christian university president. His aim was to help the reader “prepare well to understand the coming challenges” and also to meet them with a faithful testimony.[25] White listed several specific challenges for those connected with institutions of higher education, including the potential loss of tax-exemptions (and various hardships that might precipitate), legal penalties for Title VII and Title IX infractions, and the potential loss of accreditation. White also offered a handful of strategies for meeting these challenges. First, he said that every institution should get their documents in order. Next, he said that faculty and staff ought to be required to affirm those documents, including an explicit statement or confession of faith. Then, White said that universities would do well to lean into their distinctive Christian education, even making a biblical worldview part of the basic curriculum plan. Fourth, White said that schools ought to require chapel and emphasize the importance of spiritual growth and discipleship on campus. And last, he said that universities should require a personal profession of faith from prospective students. These strategies effectively double-down on the distinctly Christian character of Christian education, and White argued that this is the way forward in an increasingly antagonistic environment for religious liberty.

In chapter ten, Travis Wussow (then directory of international justice and religious liberty and general counsel for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention) explained and argued for a foreign policy effort to promote religious pluralism worldwide, especially in those countries that are Muslim-dominated and often antagonistic to this sort of religious liberty. Wussow acknowledged that international law cannot be enforced in such a way so as to require foreign states to grant their citizens the kind of religious liberty that is enjoyed by citizens of another state. However, he did argue that international law does have influence, and there are economic levers to pull in an effort to promote various foreign policy goals. Wussow did note two specific applications of religious liberty in modern Islamic countries: one, by aiming to remove criminal penalties for “apostasy,” and two, by encouraging Muslims to view religious conversion away from Islam as something other than “apostasy.”[26] While Wussow pointed to some positive advancements, it seems highly unlikely that either of these applications is likely to gain much ground in the near future.

In the final chapter of this book, Jason Duesing (provost and associate professor of historical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) ended much where he began. He summarized the books aims: “first, to show how Christians have defended religious liberty throughout history;” “second… to present the biblical and rational defense for the practice and protection of religious liberty;” and “third… [to] review the present and future threats to religious liberty.”[27] Duesing invites the reader to consider the “end goal” of religious liberty by contemplating the humbling sacrifice and the glorious exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ described in Philippians 2. He said that there is both a warning and a hope, as well as an implied commission to use the time between the sacrificial cross and the judgment throne. Duesing concluded by saying, “Hope. Warning. Good news that Jesus is Lord shared while there still is time even at the risk of one’s security, safety, and rights – all for the glory of God. This is the true end of religious liberty.”[28]

Conclusion

Like all books with various contributing authors, some are better contributors than others, and some parts are of greater value than the whole. This short introduction to the topic of religious liberty is also hindered by its cultural and political moment. The challenges to religious liberty (which comprise a good portion of the substance and interaction of this book) are somewhat dated after nearly ten years. In some ways, the challenges articulated have become greater and more clearly defined with time, but the challenges themselves and the proposed strategies to meet them are inevitably limited to the priorities and structures of the moment in which they were written.

No doubt, some of the proposals and truth-claims in this book are timeless, and these shall be applicable to any audience. Because this is true, and because this book does provide some good historical background for the concept of religious liberty among the Baptists, it seems that the reader may benefit from reading it. There are better books and other resources that will give readers a more comprehensive, consistent, and historically conversant exposure to religious liberty, but First Freedom can certainly be a decent introduction. It is easy to read, it has several quality chapters, and it is a hope-filled and thoughtful call for Christians to live today as ambassadors for Christ while King Jesus is still receiving new converts into His kingdom. One day religious liberty will be no more, but until then, let us seek its true end.

Marc Minter is husband to Cassie and father to Micah and Malachi. He is also the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Diana, TX. Website: fbcdiana.org. Email: marc@fbcdiana.org.

[1] Jason G. Duesing, Thomas White, and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, eds., First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Liberty, Second (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016). xi.

[2] First Freedom, 7.

[3] First Freedom, 7.

[4] First Freedom, 51.

[5] First Freedom, 51.

[6] First Freedom, 79.

[7] First Freedom, 78.

[8] In his introduction, Jason Duesing says that Duke provides “several definitions of religious liberty, including the entire article from the Baptist Faith and Message 2000” (First Freedom, 6). However, I am unable to find even a single definition of religious liberty in Duke’s chapter, other than the article from the Baptist Faith and Message that is tacked onto the end. And one wonders why Duke offered nearly no comment on the article from the BF&M. It is merely appended as something of an afterthought. 

[9] First Freedom, 107.

[10] First Freedom, 107.

[11] Duke said that “government must step in to protect its citizens” when “some people… abuse any liberty” (First Freedom, 107). But Duke did not explain what sort of religious liberty he wanted to promote or what sort of qualifications he would like to have marking off the parameters of religious liberty.

[12] One example of a historical error is Lenow’s assertion that Christianity “became the official religion of the [Roman] empire under Constantine” (First Freedom, 112). Of course, Constantine did issue the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, but this was an edict of toleration and legalization, not conscription. It was Theodosius the Great who issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD which did officially mandate Nicene Christianity as the state religion.

[13] First Freedom, 154-155.

[14] First Freedom, 152.

[15] First Freedom, 128-129.

[16] First Freedom, 129.

[17] First Freedom, 145.

[18] First Freedom, 146.

[19] First Freedom, 155.

[20] First Freedom, 160.

[21] First Freedom, 165.

[22] First Freedom, 174.

[23] First Freedom, 170.

[24] First Freedom, 170.

[25] First Freedom, 182.

[26] First Freedom, 240-241.

[27] First Freedom, 249.

[28] First Freedom, 257.

Backus & Leland: Contrasting Baptists on the Concept of Liberty

Introduction

Gregory Wills concludes his book Democratic Religion by saying, “Baptists had traditionally understood the democracy of Baptist churches to mean that all church members exercised ecclesiastical authority jointly, including authority over belief and behavior” (emphasis added).[1] But, Wills goes on, “by the [early twentieth century], Baptists began to embrace the idea that a democratic church meant that all were equally free from ecclesiastical authority” (emphasis added).[2] This essay will explore that difference of perspective among many Baptists by focusing on two Baptists in particular, Isaac Backus and John Leland.

While Backus and Leland were both leading advocates for liberty of conscience during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, their respective applications of this principle represent contrasting views of individual and ecclesiastical authority. Baptists have always argued for a democratic form of religion and genuine freedom from civil regulation in the practice of it, but among every generation of Baptists there are those who differ with one another about how to practice democratized religion. 

Isaac Backus represents the sort of Baptist that Greg Wills calls “church-oriented evangelicalism.”[3] Backus argued strongly for liberty of conscience, but he understood such a liberty should be exercised under the authority of a local church. John Leland, on the other hand, represents a fully individualized sort of Baptist, the kind of evangelical that embraced an amplified form of pietism.[4] He shared Backus’s perspective of a free conscience, but he also believed that neither state nor church should intrude on the “religious opinions of men.”[5] Leland asserted, “religion is a matter between God and individuals.”[6]

This paper will show many similarities and some significant contrasts between these two Baptist heroes, Isaac Backus and John Leland. And we will contend that Backus represents a better Baptist advocate for religious liberty, since his arguments and practices maintain a high view of the local church, while Leland’s arguments and practices lead to the obsolescence of the local church. First, we will provide an introduction of the two men in their historic context. Second, we will compare some of their arguments for liberty of conscience and separation between the governments of church and state. Third, we will document some of the contrasts between their applications of religious liberty, especially regarding their distinct ministries. And finally, we will conclude by tracing some connection with this historic contrast of heroes to an ongoing divergence among some Baptists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

Part I: Baptist Contemporaries  

Though Isaac Backus was born thirty years before John Leland, and Leland outlived Backus by thirty-five years, their overlapping lives had a good deal in common. They both left the Congregationalist establishment of eighteenth-century New England to form Baptist convictions and to engage in distinctly Baptist ministry. They both embraced and even embodied the personal conversion experiences that became so ubiquitous during the First Great Awakening.[7] And they both stand as historic leaders among a religious movement that affected both religion and politics during the transition from British colonies to an America nation. Backus and Leland argued publicly for freedom of religion (any religion or none at all) without any compelling burden from the state. These men were Baptist leaders of the highest rank, and their pioneering spirit is a treasured heritage of freedom-loving Baptists in America today. 

Isaac Backus (1724-1806)

Isaac Backus was “born and raised an ordinary yeoman farmer in Norwich, Connecticut, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.”[8] From the earliest age, Backus was “a member of the established [church] or Standing Order of New England.” [9]  Congregationalist churches were the official religious institutions of New England, and Backus was baptized into membership as an infant, like all other good citizens at that time. However, in 1741, at age seventeen, Backus experienced evangelical conversion influenced by the ministry of itinerants like George Whitefield and James Davenport. Backus wrote of the experience in his diary, 

As I was mowing alone in the field, August 24, 1741, all my past life was opened plainly before me, and I saw clearly that it had been filled up with sin… I perceived that I could never make myself better, should I live ever so long. Divine justice appeared clear in my condemnation, and I saw that God had a right to do with me as he would… And while I sat there, I was enabled by divine light to see the perfect righteousness of Christ and the freeness and riches of His grace, with such clearness, that my soul was drawn forth to trust in Him for salvation.[10]

About ten months after his conversion, Backus became a communicant member of the Congregationalist church of Norwich.[11] And yet, not long after, Backus and some of his fellow church members decided that the inclusion of unconverted persons among the church’s membership was an error too significant to abide. Backus had previously decided to “bear those things as a burden and to hope for a reformation,” but the church continued as it had done to intentionally welcome a mixed congregation to the Lord’s table.[12] So, Backus and several others left the parish church in 1745 to gather for “separate” meetings.[13] They soon formed a New Light congregation, and, after a couple of years as a traveling preacher, Backus became their pastor.

It was as the uneducated and unordained pastor of the Titicut Separatist Church that Backus wrestled with the doctrine of baptism and began forming his views on religious liberty.[14] He was baptized as an infant, and he practiced infant baptism during the first years of his pastorate, but on August 7, 1749, two of his church members – Ebenezer Hinds and Jonathan Woods – “began to set forth antipedobaptist views.”[15] For twenty days, Backus prayed and studied on the subject with great anxiety, since he knew that “To deny that God required the baptism of infants was to subvert the whole structure of the Bible Commonwealth.”[16]

Then on August 27, Backus preached that “none had any right to baptism but Believers, and that plunging [seemed] the only right mode.”[17] However, even as he preached the sermon, Backus later wrote in his diary, “I felt my mind entangled, and an awful gloom followed… [and] my mind was turned back to infant baptism.”[18] Indeed, after a time away, making plans for his marriage to Susanna Mason, Backus returned to Titicut and called a church meeting on September 26, wherein he “retracted what [he] had preached against infant baptism.”[19]

For more than a year, Backus continued to struggle with his own convictions, even as he continued to pastor his church and preach as an itinerant. But finally, on July 25, 1751, Backus announced to his church “that he was no longer able to believe that God had commanded infant baptism.”[20] Instead, “none ought to be baptized, and thus have the outward mark of Christ’s disciples put upon them, except those who give evidence of having believed in him.”[21] And Backus was baptized as a conscious believer about a month later, on August 22. Benjamin Pierce pastored a church in Rhode Island, but he was preaching at a church nearby. Pierce gave Backus the “opportunity to practice as [he] now believed was right.”[22] “Therefore,” as Backus himself later wrote, “I told some account of my conversion and then of my experiences as to these things, which gave satisfaction; then I went down into the water with [Pierce] and was baptized.”[23]

This pivotal moment for Isaac Backus did not, however, become the full embrace of Baptist convictions for his church. That did not happen for another four and a half years. Backus sought to “maintain his church and others in [the Separate-Baptist] faction upon an open-communion basis.”[24] He “agreed to conduct dedication services for infants or to let pedobaptists bring in another minister for baptism by sprinkling.”[25] But by January of 1756, Backus “was ready to give up the experiment with open-communion.”[26] He led six members of the Titicut Separate Church to form a new church altogether, one that was consciously and unequivocally Baptist. On January 16, The First Baptist Church of Middleborough, Massachusetts, was established on the basis of their shared “confession of faith,” a shared constitution of “church affairs,” and a shared “covenant” of church membership.[27]

Backus would serve and lead as the pastor of First Baptist Middleborough for the next fifty years, until his death. It is here, in the personal wrestling, the pastoral shepherding, and in the ecclesiastical structuring of Backus’s Christian ministry that he differs so significantly from his contemporary, John Leland. Both men believed that religion should not be restrained or managed by civil authorities, but Backus’s argument and practice of religious liberty was unquestionably church-shaped. Leland, on the other hand, seems to have thought that the institution of the church was just as dangerous as the state when it comes to threatening religious liberty.

John Leland (1754-1841)

Thirty years after the birth of Isaac Backus and nearly ten years after Backus left the established church in Norwich to form a new and Separate congregation, on May 14, 1754, John Leland was born. As a man, Leland claimed that his father, James, was “convinced… by reading the Bible, that believers were the only proper subjects of baptism, and immersion the only gospel mode.”[28] Nevertheless, Leland said that his father “sunk from his conviction,” and “invited the [Congregationalist] minister of the town to come to his house on a certain Sunday… and baptize” all his children.[29]

Leland says that he was “something more than three years old” at the time of his baptism, but the church records in Grafton list him at age five.[30] Either way, Leland’s precocious character seems to have been evident quite early. He told the story, “when I found out what the object of the meeting was, I was greatly terrified, and betook myself to flight.”[31] However, his “flight was in vain,” for he was “pursued” and “overtaken” by “the maid,” who “caught” him and delivered him to his father and the minister.[32] Whether this tale is embellished or not, only heaven knows, but Leland’s account of his reluctant baptism epitomizes his uncanny independence in matters of religion. The historian Eric Smith says, “[Leland] instinctively grasped that religious acts must be free and voluntary to be genuine.”[33] At a minimum, the adult Leland wanted everyone to know that he valued this instinct.

During his upbringing, Leland was exposed to both of the clashing religious cultures in New England. The Grafton Congregationalist Church represented the established and traditional culture of the passing generation, and the Nonconformists or Separatists represented the vigorous and innovative culture of the rising generation. Eric Smith writes, “James Leland kept John and his siblings in the regular Sabbath services at the Grafton Congregational Church,” but “at home, James read the Bible aloud, catechized the children, and discussed religion regularly at family meals.”[34] And yet, with all of this exposure to gospel light, John Leland placed the time of his conversion after his teenage years.

Leland was an active and independent young man with a sinful appetite, which (by his own admission) he fed quite well as a teenager. But at one point God impressed on Leland’s mind a sense of impending judgment, and he began to seek for conversion among revivalistic enthusiasts. Leland says that he “heard much preaching and conversation about the change which is essential to salvation,”[35] but he “had never passed through stages of distress… equal to what [he] supposed as essential pre-requisite to conversion.”[36]

Finally, Leland says, “One evening, as I was walking on the road alone… [I] expressed myself thus: ‘I am not a Christian; I have never been convicted and converted like others.”[37] But “soon after this,” Leland went on, “I felt my soul yield up to Christ and trust in him.”[38] It was, as Smith wrote, “a Bible impression that provided [Leland] the assurance he craved.”[39] Smith also points out that Leland was adamant, “at no point did he consult a local minister or involve the church in his spiritual quest.”[40] Leland’s conversion story, Smith says, “is striking for its solitary character.”[41]

Leland was among the New Lights or the “radical evangelicals” who embraced the charismatic and mystical elements of Christianity, which emphasized personal and sensational experience.[42] In his writings and preaching, Leland recounted many occasions of supernatural encounters throughout his life, including “premonitions, visions and dreams, divine healings, and angelic visitations.”[43] This personal access to divine power and even spiritual enlightenment only strengthened Leland’s conviction that he needed nothing but his own mind, the Bible, and a little time and diligence to arrive upon the right understanding of any Christian doctrine or practice.

On June 1, 1774, Leland was baptized by Noah Alden, a Separate Baptist pastor from Bellingham.[44] For his part, when he presented himself for baptism, Leland was hoping that the “preacher” would “discern” that he “was deceived” and “reject” him as a baptismal candidate.[45] But, as Leland told it, Alden had no probing questions to ask and no interest in discerning the true condition of Leland’s soul. Alden merely asked if Leland “believed in the Calvinistical doctrine.”[46] After a brief exchange, wherein Leland claimed some ignorance of such doctrine, Alden “received” Leland for baptism, and Leland “would not give back” his request for it.[47] Leland’s baptism, like his conversion, seems to have been largely a matter of his personal initiative and his own intellectual and emotional consideration.

Leland’s foray into preaching ministry, which came nineteen days after he was baptized, was also a self-initiated and personally confirmed. Even before his baptism, Leland and another man about his age were setting up “evening meetings” where they would “sing, pray, and speak according to our proportion of faith.”[48] But Leland was in a “constant” state of “worry” about “preaching” during that season of his life, since he was still not sure whether he was truly converted.[49] However, on Sunday, June 20, 1744, Leland had his “conscience… arrested” by Scriptures brought to his mind and Bible verses he admittedly read out of their context.[50] Leland became convinced that he “must either… open my mouth and give glory to the name of God, or his curse would fall upon me.”[51] So, Leland preached his first sermon as a man commissioned by God to do so, and the experience was exhilarating for him. He said, “At the beginning, my mind was somewhat bewildered… but continuing, my ideas brightened, and after a while I enjoyed such freedom of thought and utterance of words as I had never before.”[52] Thus, Leland’s personal call from God into the preaching ministry was confirmed.

The significance of Leland’s personal conversion and his personal call to preach was highlighted by Eric Smith in his 2022 biography. Smith wrote, “The self-reliant Leland resolved the two defining issues of his life, his conversion and his call to preach, with God alone, professedly neither seeking nor receiving the assistance of the church.”[53] Indeed, for “more than sixty years, John Leland rode circuit up and down the Atlantic seaboard as a fervent Baptist itinerant evangelist.”[54] From start to finish, Leland was an “independent operator,” and he was only ever “loosely connected to church or denomination.”[55] Leland “insisted on hammering out his own belief system, depending as exclusively as possible on his open Bible and God-given common sense.”[56] And his “private study produced an eclectic and idiosyncratic blend of traditional Calvinism, charismatic New Light spirituality, and Jeffersonian rationalism.”[57]

Leland’s long ministry and public arguments reflected his personal experiences and convictions. The fundamental starting point for Leland’s idea of religious liberty was individual conscience, and from Leland’s perspective, the organized church could be just as stifling to religious freedom as an overstepping state. Leland seems to have gone further than Backus, not only arguing that religion should be free from restraint and management by civil authorities, but that ecclesiastical authorities must also give way to an utterly individualized sense of freedom to believe and behave according to one’s personal conviction.

Part II: Baptist Co-belligerents

Backus and Leland were both strong public advocates for religious freedom. So notable were their similarities on religious liberty that Edwin Gaustad has proposed a “Backus-Leland Tradition.”[58] Gaustad argues that Backus and Leland shared overlapping views of “the individual Christian and his freedom,” “the visible church,” and “the visible churches and the Church.”[59] While Backus and Leland actually differed quite noticeably in their views of the visible church and the relationship of church and state,[60] they did argue similarly for religious freedom during a time when there was hardly such a thing in North America.[61]

Church-State Relationship

Prior to and immediately after the founding of an American nation, Baptists on the North American continent argued for a greater religious freedom than they often enjoyed. Like the Church of England, Congregationalists in the New World were not inclined to allow for religious dissent, and they seemed just as comfortable as their Anglican brethren to use the levers of the state to enforce at least some degree of uniformity. All Baptists wanted freedom from religious taxation and persecution, but not all Baptists had the same goal in mind when it came to religious liberty. “Isaac Backus,” wrote Barry Hankins, “serves as the primary example showing that some Baptists touted religious liberty only within the parameters of a generally Christian culture.”[62] William McLoughlin said that Backus “sought a ‘sweet harmony’ for the new American republic,” a harmony between church and state; “but,” said McLoughlin, “[Backus] helped to produce the cacophony of sectarianism and pluralism.”[63]

The results aside, it is true that Backus saw two distinct jurisdictions – one for the church and the other for the state. Backus believed that the “secular” and “ecclesiastical” governments were intended to be distinct from the time of the New Testament. But, he says, “Constantine” was “moved” in the fourth century to “draw his sword against heretics.”[64] This was the beginning of a church-state merger, according to both Backus and Leland, and they both believed that Christianity was negatively affected by it ever since.[65] Backus argued that England finally did “groan under this hellish tyranny,” and the English “renounced” the Roman “head.”[66] However, Backus pointed out that the Anglicans “set up [their own] king as their head in ecclesiastical as well as civil concernments.”[67] Thus, says Backus, “the high places were not taken away, and the lord of bishops made such work in them, as drove our fathers from thence into America.”[68]

And yet, Backus blamed the descendants of the Puritans, the Congregationalists in North America, for being those who “determined to pick out all that they thought was of universal and moral equity in Moses’s laws, and so to frame a Christian common-wealth here.” [69] In so doing, Backus said, “they strove very hard to have the church govern the world, till they lost their charter; since which they have yielded to have the world govern the church.”[70] From Backus’s perspective, the two jurisdictions – church and state – must be kept distinct, otherwise the state would unavoidably encroach upon the church.

Backus did not, however, believe that the state had absolutely no interest in promoting the Christians religion. He said that “judgment and righteousness are essential to freedom,”[71] and “rulers… ought to improve all their influence in their several stations to promote and support true religion by Gospel means and methods.”[72] Indeed, Barry Hankins claims that Backus “supported the test-oath provision of the Massachusetts state constitution and probably voted in favor of the petition requesting that the U.S. Congress establish a bureau to license publication of Bibles.”[73] This is why Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins both place Backus in the “accommodationist” camp, and not the “separationist.”[74]

Leland, for his part, was a separationist in full, albeit an inconsistent one.[75] Writing his own history of Virginia in 1790, Leland affirmed the need for civil government, saying, “Civil government is certainly a curse to mankind; but it is a necessary curse, in this fallen state, to prevent greater evils.”[76] But Leland said in a sermon at Cheshire in 1801 that “civil rulers… have nothing to do with religion.”[77] And in a pamphlet on Sabbatical Laws, published in 1815, Leland said, “The work of the legislature is to make laws for the security of life, liberty and property, and leave religion to the consciences of individuals.”[78] Then Leland added, “If the sacred code, in the New Testament, is not sufficient to govern Christians in all their religious affairs, either the wisdom or goodness of Christ is insufficient.”[79]

Leland did seem to agree with the notion that there are distinct jurisdictions regarding the church and the state. In a pamphlet published in 1804, he argued that the church is governed by Christ as a “Christocracy.”[80] Leland explained that the government of the church in “some parts” resembles a “monarchy,” while in “other parts” it is like a “democracy,” but it “is different from all other governments” of the world.[81] Specifically, “Christ is absolute legislator,” and “He appoints and commissions all the spiritual officers of his government.”[82] And “liberty and equality, the boast of democracy, is realized in the church” in the lives and relationships of “the saints.”[83] But, said Leland, “Christ’s laws are spiritual, reaching to the hearts, thoughts, and motives of men, and requiring truth in the inward parts.”[84] This sort of legal requirement is impossible for the state, since its laws “take cognizance of actions only.”[85] As Leland saw it, “a man may be a good citizen of state, and at the same time be an enemy to God,” since the two legal jurisdictions are distinguished and must necessarily be so.[86]

Liberty of Conscience

Not only did Backus and Leland agree on distinct church-state jurisdictions, but they also argued for religious liberty on the basis on conscience. In fact, Leland’s fundamental argument against the state meddling in religious affairs was not the jurisdictional distinction, but the fundamental nature and function of the individual conscience. Leland spoke of conscience as though it were its own sort of “empire” with its own innate “liberty” and authority.[87] For Leland, it was not only the state that might encroach upon conscience but even the church itself. In a letter to the honorable e said, “Let the church be formed… of living stones, and proceed as the Bible directs, and I will be subject, and not set up my will as a standard for others; but let them not crowd into the empire of conscience.”[88] With regard to both state and church regulations, Leland said, “if laws are made to describe what God I shall adore, how I shall worship him, and what places and times that worship shall be paid; be it known to all that I will not fall down and worship the image that is set up. ‘Where conscience begins, empire ends.’”[89]

Backus, for his part, also affirmed that God has bestowed upon men a “liberty of conscience.”[90] And Backus argued that the “full liberty of conscience” must include both the “inward man” and the “outward man,” not only freedom to believe but also the freedom to worship without the threat of persecution.[91] The main target of Backus’s ire was the taxation of Separates and Baptists in order to support “pedobaptist ministers.”[92] And even when some dissenters were exempted from such a tax, Backus argued that the requirement to “annually… certify” the substance of “our belief” as “the condition of… being exempted” was akin to “adultery” or “whoredom,” since it was effectively requiring Christian churches to “admit a higher ruler in a nation into her husband’s [i.e., Christ’s] place.”[93]

Backus and Leland both believed that the state ought not meddle in the affairs of the church, and they both argued similarly for a new kind of religious freedom on the world stage. They both made public efforts to change the charter and practices of their state with regard to established religion and the persecution of nonconformists. Conscience is the domain of God alone, and Christ is the true king and husband of Christians in the world; therefore, the state must not impose legal demands on religious belief or practices. In the fight for religious freedom during the early days of the American experiment, Backus and Leland were co-belligerents. 

Part III: Baptist Contrasts

All of the similarities and even the evident passions shared by Backus and Leland might lead one to believe that they ought to be virtually identical in their application of religious liberty. And yet, the legacy that each man left behind is dramatically different. These contemporary co-belligerents actually contrast one another quite significantly at the point of their divergent relationships with the local church.

The Pastor vs. The Itinerant

The writings of John Leland are full of personal stories, preached sermons, polemical arguments, and even political philosophies and speeches. In a pamphlet called “The Bible Baptist,” Leland argued for believer’s baptism by immersion, following many of the typical Baptist arguments.[94] In a recorded speech, dated July 4, 1805, Leland argued for an “elective judiciary” based on “the fundamental principle of republicanism.”[95] Leland even penned poems and hymns. One poem lyricizing his experience says, “Come old, come young, and hear me relate My life and adventures, and my present state.”[96]

Leland was an itinerant preacher who spent his entire adult life (more than sixty years) riding horseback across untold miles of American soil to preach the evangelical way of salvation and promote an American culture marked by republican and democratic ideals. Eric Smith has noted that “Leland embodied the rise of liberal individualism that marked American society in the latter eighteenth century.”[97] Leland “left the Congregational Church of his youth to enter the Baptist fold,” but he remained highly independent even among Baptists.[98] He “repeatedly turned down invitations to settled pastorates… preferring the unfettered lifestyle of a self-supporting itinerant.”[99]

Leland’s individuality was prioritized over his connection to any church. Some extracts from a letter Leland wrote, in response to a question about his views on church discipline and communion, include his statement that “church labor” and the “breaking [of] bread” is not what “the Lord… placed on” him as a regular obligation.[100] Rather, said Leland, “whenever I think I can do good, or get good, I will attend church-meeting and… I will commune.”[101] But, he went on, “if the church cannot bear thus with me, I wish them to give me a letter of dismission,” and “if such a letter cannot be given, consistently with the order and dignity of the church, I suppose excommunication must follow.”[102]

Leland said that a “leading characteristic of the Baptists” is that they are “united in sentiment, respecting the New Testament” despite the fact that they have no “legalized creeds,” no “human coercion in discipline,” and “the Bible is the only confession of faith they dare adopt.”[103] And yet some Baptists actually appreciated both creeds and discipline, and here is where Backus and Leland diverge. While Backus’s strong insistence of religious liberty and voluntary conscience parallel with Leland’s, Backus centered his everyday ministry on one local church.

Like Leland, Backus was a prolific writer and speaker. And his writings also included doctrinal arguments as well as political engagement. William McLoughlin said that Isaac Backus was “clearly a leading figure” among those who “first conceived the idea of calling a general conference to draw up a united petition to the General Court” of Massachusetts in order to persuade civil authorities to ease the “heavy trials and burdens” upon Separates who wanted “liberty” from the “Support of a worship that we can’t in conscience join.”[104] And McLoughlin published a nearly five-hundred-page volume of Backus’s “pamphlets” that included public arguments for a call divine to preach, Christian liberty, and the doctrine of particular election.[105]

But Backus also published a set of documents that Leland seems nearly incapable of producing or even affirming – a church confession, constitution, and covenant.[106] The second appendix of Alvah Hovey’s historical volume on Backus is a record of those foundational documents that Backus prepared and led his fledgling congregation to adopt in 1756. Article fourteen of Backus’s confession is the affirmation that “believers” are not only “united to Jesus Christ” but also “united to each other,” having “communion one with another,” and thus “made partakers of each other’s gifts and graces.”[107] This declaration of the communal nature of Christianity sets Backus apart from Leland, and other features of Backus’s church documents display the contrast even more significantly.

The formatting and structure of the confession, the constitution, and the covenant of the First Baptist Church of Middleborough is distributed in two parts of equal length. The first half consists of seventeen “Articles of Faith,” and part two is the church’s beliefs “Concerning Church Affairs.”[108] One of the most striking statements among those in the church’s constitution is that baptism is affirmed as “the door of the Church,” and “none but saints… [who] give scriptural evidences of their union to Christ by faith” can “rightly partake of [the] ordinances” of the church.[109] Such a practice would starkly contrast Leland’s story of a far more personal and individualized experience of baptism. 

Backus also made it clear that his application of liberty of conscience did not preclude an obligation for Christians to “hold communion together in the worship of God… and in the ordinances and discipline of his church.”[110] This is an unambiguous divergence from Leland’s statement that he would “commune” with his church on those occasions “whenever” he believed he might “do good” or “get good.”[111] In fact, the membership covenant of Backus’s church includes the obligation to “give up ourselves to one another,” to “act towards each other as brethren in Christ,” and to “[watch] over one another in the love of God.”[112]

Backus and Leland both toured as itinerant preachers, they both invested themselves in the civil and religious affairs of New England, and they both stand as leading advocates of religious liberty in the New World. And yet, Backus leaves behind a legacy of pastoring the same church for fifty years and forming the experience of Christian living within the context of church membership. Leland, on the other hand, lived independently from the confines of local church obligations. Leland was the Evangelical itinerant, but Backus was the Evangelical pastor.

Advancing Individualism

The historical record shows that Leland was indeed a regular preaching elder at Third Baptist Church in Cheshire, but Leland made it clear that he was just as free from any binding to that congregation as any other. Eric Smith wrote, “the plain truth was that the self-sufficient Leland simply did not share the Baptist reverence for the local church.”[113]Leland “would preach consistently in Third Cheshire for more than fifty years,” said Smith, “but Leland steadily refused the church’s overtures for greater commitment; the most they could get out of him were a few one-year engagements to fill the pulpit in his later years.”[114] And no episode demonstrates Leland’s heightened individualism than his thirteen-year refusal to administer the Lord’s Supper to the members of Third Baptist Church in Cheshire.

In a personal list of various statements, Leland responded to the church’s request that he perform the pastoral duty of administering the Supper with the church. Eric Smith describes Leland’s short response as a “breathtaking declaration of religious autonomy… [wherein] Leland… unmoored himself from every authority outside of his conscience – his own church, eighteen hundred years of Christian tradition, and even the Bible.”[115] Even still, the church preferred to maintain what relationship they had with Leland, so they never did take any action against him. Leland continued his dubious relationship with Third Cheshire until he died, preaching and ministering there according to his own preferences and schedule, and his wide-ranging public ministry (both preaching and writing) extended this type of religious individualism to many other Baptists as well. Smith says, “Over the nineteenth century, Baptists increasingly identified themselves more with their commitment to modern notions of private judgment and ‘soul liberty’ than with the enforcement of ecclesial authority.”[116]

One man who might be credited with making “soul liberty” the chief identifier of Baptists in America is E. Y. Mullins. Edgar Young Mullins (1860-1928) was the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for the first quarter of the twentieth century. Better known as E. Y. Mullins, he published his Axioms of Religion in 1908, in which he asserted that the “conception of the competency of the soul under God in religion… is the distinctive contribution of Baptists to the religious thought of the race [of man]” (emphasis added).[117] Mullins believed the doctrine of “soul competency” is the one that “comprehended all the… particulars… [of the] historical significance of the Baptists.”[118]This doctrine, according to Mullins, is summarized in the statement, “Religion is a personal matter between the soul and God.”[119] And it necessarily includes the “separation of Church and State,” “Justification by faith alone,” and “Regeneration… as a result of the soul’s direct dealing with God.”[120]

John Hammett asserts, “E. Y. Mullins was by no means the creator of individualism.”[121] Hammett admits that there is an “element of it” in the Bible, and he says the Enlightenment promoted individualism throughout Western culture. But Hammett credits “the First Great Awakening,” with “its emphasis on individual, personal conversion” for brining this distinctive into “Baptist life.”[122] Indeed, as the historian Nathan Hatch summarized, “preachers from the periphery of American culture came to reconstruct Christianity,” and Hatch said that the “clarion message that rang out above all their diversity” was “the primacy of the individual conscience.”[123]

Mullins, for his part, does not cite any previous or contemporaneous work in specific support of his concept of “soul competency.”[124] However, one can hardly fail to notice a fundamental similarity between Mullins’s “soul competency” and Leland’s conception of “conscience.”[125] It seems that Leland’s trajectory is well-maintained in Mullins, and many twentieth- and twenty-first-century Baptists carry the torch of individualism. But it is important to note that the individualized practice of Christianity is not essential to the Baptist conviction of religious liberty or the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Greg Wills writes, 

From the colonial era until the early twentieth century, Southern Baptists… rejected modernity’s individualism. Baptist piety had individualist characteristics rooted in the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers… but they repulsed the privatizing trend of democratic individualism. The church, they believed, had prerogatives that superseded those of individuals. The redeemed community determined corporately the meaning of the sacred text, the shape of Christian spirituality, and the regulation of virtue.[126]

But Southern Baptist churches, says Wills, “experienced a revolutionary change between 1850 and 1950.”[127]He explains, “In 1850, Southern Baptists understood democracy largely in terms of ecclesiastical authority. In 1950, they understood it primarily in terms of individual freedom.”[128] In summary, “Evangelicals were no longer convinced that there was a divine mandate to establish pure churches as the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom was within. Individual piety required no mediation of the ecclesiastical institutions.”[129]

The notion of individual freedom or religious individualism is more in line with the substance and practice of John Leland’s philosophy than Isaac Backus’s. Leland traveled as an independent itinerant for sixty years, but Backus pastored the same church in Middleborough for fifty years. Leland wrote dismissively about creeds, excommunication, and the Lord’s Supper, and rejected his responsibility to submit to the authority of a local church and participate in the ordinances. But Backus penned a confession of faith, a church polity, and a membership covenant for his church, and he led his congregation in the consistent implementation of these documents for five decades. Leland settled all authority (both civil and religious) on the individual conscience, but Backus exemplified a Baptist conviction of religious liberty coupled with a high view of ecclesiastical authority. Both men were thoroughly Baptist, and both have their ongoing descendants among Baptists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And yet, it does seem that only one of these men led Baptists in a direction that maintains the nature and function of the local church.

[1] Gregory A. Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 137.

[2] Wills, 137.

[3] Wills, 139.

[4] John Leland’s individualism will be explained further, but it is important to note here that he was a persistent preacher at Third Baptist Church in Cheshire, MA, for fifty years. However, his relationship with the church could hardly be defined as traditionally pastoral. Leland biographer Eric Smith wrote of Leland’s original agreement with the Cheshire church, and the relationship between them over the years remained just as tenuous. Smith said, “It was… agreed that while the church would recognize Leland as an elder… Leland would operate as a kind of preacher in-residence… [using] Cheshire as base of operations for his itinerant ministry, and then ‘preach [at Third Baptist] whenever he felt disposed and duty seemed to call him there.’” Eric C. Smith, John Leland: A Jeffersonian Baptist in Early America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2022). 99.

[5] John Leland, The Writings of John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene, Reprint (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1969). 181.

[6] Leland, 181.

[7] The language of “First” and “Second” Great Awakening has been demonstrated to be somewhat inaccurate by Thomas Kidd. The revivals in New England during the 1740s were preceded by others, and there were more revivals during the 1760s and 1780s. But for the purposes of this essay, the present author is content to use the phrase “First Great Awakening” to refer to those revivals in New England during the 1740s. Thomas Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. Kindle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).

[8] William McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, ed. Oscar Handlin, The Library of American Biography (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1967). ix.

[9] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, x.

[10] Alvah Hovey, A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, ATLA Monograph Preservation Program (Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, 1859). 39.

[11] William McLoughlin does not mention Backus’s conscious post-conversion connection with the Standing Order church in Norwich, merely that Backus had already been a member of the church from the time of his infant baptism. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, x. Both Alvah Hovey and James Leo Garrett describe Backus as having “joined” the Congregational Church in Norwich after a ten-month period of hesitation due to Reverend Benjamin Lord’s inclusion of members who had “no account of any change of heart.” Ultimately, it was this practice of unregenerate membership that provoked Backus and other church members to separate from the established church in Norwich. James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study, 1st ed (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009). 155. Hovey, 41-42.

[12] Hovey, 42.

[13] Garrett, 155.

[14] Backus had no formal theological training, and he was not recognized as an ordained minister by the Congregationalists. Backus wrote of his own personal experience of God’s call upon him to “preach his Gospel.” Hovey, 61.

[15] Garrett, 155. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 57 and 61.

[16] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 59.

[17] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 64.

[18] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 64.

[19] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 67.

[20] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 73

[21] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 73.

[22] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 74.

[23] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 74.

[24] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 87.

[25] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 87.

[26] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, 87.

[27] Hovey, 334-339.

[28] Leland, 9.

[29] Leland, 9.

[30] Leland, 9. Eric Smith notes that the “Grafton Record Book has the event listed June 28, 1759 (p. 104), which would make John five years old, not three.” Smith, 12.

[31] Leland, 9.

[32] Leland, 10.

[33] Smith, 11.

[34] Smith, 16.

[35] Leland, 11.

[36] Leland, 13.

[37] Leland, 14.

[38] Leland, 14.

[39] Smith, 24.

[40] Smith, 24.

[41] Smith, 24.

[42] Thomas Kidd has demonstrated that the “Old Light” and “New Light” dichotomy is insufficient for understanding the two poles of reaction to the eighteenth-century revivals in New England. Kidd, The Great Awakening, xiv. But the historic label is still recognized as accurate, even appearing repeatedly in Eric Smith’s 2022 Oxford University Press publication. Smith, 26.

[43] Smith, 26.

[44] Smith, 30.

[45] Leland, 16.

[46] Leland, 16.

[47] Leland, 16.

[48] Leland, 15.

[49] Leland, 16.

[50] Leland, 17.

[51] Leland, 17.

[52] Leland, 17.

[53] Smith, 5.

[54] Smith, 3.

[55] Smith, 3.

[56] Smith, 5.

[57] Smith, 6.

[58] Edwin S. Gaustad, “The Backus-Leland Tradition,” Foundations 2, no. 2 (April 1959): 131–52.

[59] Edwin S. Gaustad, “The Backus-Leland Tradition,” Foundations 2, no. 2 (April 1959): 132.

[60] James Leo Garrett claims that Backus and Leland had a fundamental difference in their view of the proper relationship between church and state. Garrett, 163. Barry Hankins asserted differences as well, citing William McLoughlin, who wrote at length on the Backus-Leland divide decades earlier. Barry Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon : Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture, Religion and American Culture (Tuscaloosa, AL: University Alabama Press, 2002). 128. Albert Wardin is yet another historian who has documented the contrasting views of Backus and Leland on the church and the state. Albert W Wardin, “Contrasting Views of Church and State: A Study of John Leland and Isaac Backus,” Baptist History and Heritage 33, no. 1 (1998): 12–20.

[61] Rhode Island and Pennsylvania did not establish religious institutions with their governing documents, but established religion at the state and local level was nearly ubiquitous.

[62] Hankins, 127.

[63] Garrett, 161.

[64] Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, Against the Oppressions of the Present Day (Boston: John Boyle in Marlborough-Street, 1773). 14. Backus is typical of contemporary Baptists and Separatists in his assessment that Christianity and the civil government were first joined by the Roman empire and hardly separated thereafter. John Leland says much the same in a pamphlet he published in 1815 on Sabbatical laws. Leland, 442.

[65] Leland wrote, “when Constantine the Great established Christianity in the empire… Christianity was disrobed of her virgin beauty, and prostituted to the unhallowed principle of state policy, where it has remained in a criminal commerce until the present moment.” Leland, 442.

[66] Backus, 15.

[67] Backus, 15.

[68] Backus, 15.

[69] Backus, 15-16.

[70] Backus, 15-16.

[71] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, 350.

[72] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, 359.

[73] Hankins, 128.

[74] Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins, Baptists in America: A History (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 205.

[75] Eric Smith asserts that it “is unhelpful to call Leland a ‘strict separationist’ if that term implies the creation of a totally secular public square. After all, Leland preached the gospel on the floor of Congress, voiced biblical arguments as a Massachusetts state legislator, and never (that we know of) even used the term ‘wall of separation,’ though the phrase was coined specifically for New England Baptists like him.” Smith, 94. Nevertheless, Kidd and Hankins do affix the label “separationist” upon Leland, citing Leland’s claim that “Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics.” Kidd and Hankins, 205. Even Eric Smith admits that “Leland was a more radically consistent Jeffersonian than virtually all of his Baptist peers.” Smith, 94-95. Thus, Leland may not accurately be labeled “strict,” but he was certainly a “separationist” with ample assertions that far exceeded the typical Baptists of his day. 

[76] Leland, 103.

[77] Leland, 250.

[78] Leland, 441.

[79] Leland, 441. William McLoughlin points to Sabbath laws as a particular dividing line between Backus and Leland, saying, “Backus did not live to take a stand on all of these matters [i.e., moralistic laws concerning blasphemy, profanity, gambling, card playing, dancing, and theater going], and like most colonial ministers he was no teetotaler, but he would certainly have criticized John Leland for opposing the petition to end the delivery of the mail on the Sabbath and for praising Col. Richard M. Johnson’s defense of this position.” McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, 51.

[80] Leland, 273.

[81] Leland, 275.

[82] Leland, 275.

[83] Leland, 275.

[84] Leland, 276.

[85] Leland, 276.

[86] Leland, 276.

[87] Leland, 648.

[88] Leland, 648.

[89] Leland, 648-649.

[90] Backus, 16.

[91] Backus, 30.

[92] Backus, 32.

[93] Backus, 44-45.

[94] Leland, 78-90.

[95] Leland, 283-300.

[96] Leland, 317-318.

[97] Smith, 5.

[98] In his biography of John Leland, Eric Smith spends an entire chapter on Leland’s relationship with Third Baptist Church in Cheshire, MA. As was already noted earlier in this essay, Leland began his fifty-year pastorate of this church by establishing his role as a “kind of preacher in residence.” Smith, 99. Throughout the first several years of Leland’s ministry in Cheshire, he had a busy itinerant ministry, but he still “preached [many] morning and evening Sunday services, composed hymns for congregational singing, officiated funerals, performed baptisms, ordained new deacons and elders, moderated business meetings, drew up a church constitution, and represented the church each year to the Shaftsbury Association.” Smith, 100. Yet, says Smith, “For all his success among the Baptists of Virginia and western Massachusetts, John Leland was never entirely at home in a Baptist church… For the self-reliant Leland, who ‘could never endure any cramping or abridgment of his own personal freedom of thought or action,’ this demand [of submission to the authority of a local congregation] was bound to create problems.” Smith, 102.

[99] Smith, 6.

[100] Leland, 60.

[101] Leland, 60.

[102] Leland, 60.

[103] Leland, 198.

[104] William Gerald McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). 391

[105] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism.

[106] Eric Smith points out that Leland did pen seven articles of his faith in a letter to James Whitsitt in 1832. And Leland also led Third Baptist Church of Cheshire to publish its own confession of faith in 1834, which was a direct and unsophisticated recapitulation of traditional Calvinism. Smith, 135-136. However, Leland’s motives seem here to be far more influenced by the growing anti-Calvinism influences outside of Third Baptist Church than by any pastoral impulse to shepherd his congregation toward unity in a shared faith, governance, and fellowship.

[107] Hovey, 335-336.

[108] Hovey, 334, 336.

[109] Hovey, 337.

[110] Hovey, 338.

[111] Leland, 60.

[112] Hovey, 338.

[113] Smith, 105. 

[114] Smith, 108.

[115] Smith, 116.

[116] Smith, 126.

[117] E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion: A New Interpretation of the Baptist Faith (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1908). 54.

[118] Mullins, 56-57.

[119] Mullins, 54.

[120] Mullins, 54.

[121] John S Hammett, “From Church Competence to Soul Competence: The Devolution of Baptist Ecclesiology,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 3, no. 1 (2005). 157.

[122] Hammett, 157.

[123] Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 35.

[124] Mullins. His formal citations include about twenty-five unique sources, and Mullins alludes to several other sources in the text without citing them in a footnote. The volume contains no bibliography, and the sources that are cited seem to be a wide array of representative authors who offer an example or an illustration of Mullins’s substance at various points. Therefore, one can hardly expect to find a direct link between Leland and Mullins in the form of a citation. And yet, the similarity between Mullins’s “soul competency” and Leland’s “conscience” suggests a conceptual link.

[125] E. Y. Mullins defined “soul competency” by saying “Religion is a personal matter between the soul and God.” Mullins, 54. John Leland defined “liberty of conscience” by saying, “religion is a matter between God and individuals.” Leland, 181.

[126] Wills, viii.

[127] Wills, 139.

[128] Wills, 139.

[129] Wills, 139.

Denominational Unity and Cooperation

What can a seventeenth-century episode among the General Baptists of London teach us about denominational unity and cooperation? Well, I think a good lesson can be learned here.

In the 1680s, Joseph Wright accused Matthew Caffyn of denying both the divinity and the humanity of Christ. Both men were messengers to the General Assembly of General Baptists in London, and the General Baptists had historic links to at least some Anabaptists.

Sixteenth-century Anabaptist leaders sometimes spoke and wrote problematically on the doctrine of Christ (i.e., Christology), and one in particular was the source of Caffyn’s own doctrinal advocacy. Melchior Hofmann (a German Anabaptist from the early 1500s) taught that Christ’s humanity was absorbed into His divinity, thus giving voice to an old heresy known as Eutychianism. And Matthew Caffyn had been advancing both an anti-trinitarian doctrine as well as this formal Christological heresy among English churches in Kent and Sussex.

When Joseph Wright accused Matthew Caffyn of embracing and teaching heresy in a General Assembly meeting, Caffyn responded by claiming that he did actually believe that Jesus was “both God and man” and that the Bible was his authority on the matter. Heretics notoriously evade accusations, however, by using unclear and deceptive language. Regularly heretics hide under the vocabulary of the Bible but with different definitions, and they are especially averse to the precise verbiage of any confession or statement of faith. 

As time went on, Caffyn’s heretical views became more prominent as he continued to promote his teaching among General Baptist churches. But that day, Caffyn’s accuser (Wright) was disciplined by the Assembly for not demonstrating sufficient charity. It wasn’t the heretic but his accuser who received a public reprimand.

Less than 5 years later, Caffyn was accused again, and this time his views were unavoidably heretical. During the 1693 General Assembly, the messengers affirmed that the charges of heresy were accurate, but the majority arrived at a verdict of “not guilty” anyway. It seems that they wanted to preserve peace even if that meant retaining a heretic among their number. Some messengers did sign a protest to the 1693 decision, but the vast majority forged ahead.

Caffyn faced yet more accusations and another trial three years later. But the same verdict was reached as before, Caffyn was promoting heresy but he need not be removed. This time, however, many messengers broke away from the General Assembly of General Baptists and formed the General Association. Various attempts to reunify the two groups failed because the Assembly wanted peace and the Association wanted theological unity. Over time, other heretics arose among the General Assembly, some who were more blatant and radical than Caffyn had been.

During a meeting in February of 1719 of various dissenting or nonconformist ministers at Salters’ Hall in London, fourteen of fifteen General Baptists voted in affirmation of a commitment to deny any human composition or interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity. The biblical language alone would be used, and any attempt to explain the doctrine with precise theological terms other than the Scripture would not be binding on any minister or Christian. In effect, this made it impossible for English General Baptists to distinguish between orthodox trinitarians and heretical anti-trinitarians. In just a short time, the General Assembly of General Baptists became overtly Unitarian. 

This episode of Church history can teach us the importance of dealing rightly with disagreement and unity. If any group of churches are to maintain cooperation with one another, the basis of that cooperation must be clear and enforced. And if any messenger or church among a particular cooperative group comes to embrace a divergent theological view from the rest of the group, then that messenger or church must be removed (either voluntarily or compulsorily).

If a cooperative group is unclear about the theology that unites them or if they decide not to remove those who diverge from that theological unity, then the trend is always toward divergence and not conservatism. History tells the tale again and again.

The Meaning and Practice of Baptism

Baptism means this person is now a Christian, these Christians affirm this one, and this Christian is now united with these.

Though baptism is commonly practiced by all Christian churches, the meaning of baptism can differ significantly from one local church to the next. Gregg Allison summarizes the historic Christian conviction when he writes, “Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the ‘visible elements that are sufficient and necessary for the existence of a true church.’”[1] In other words, without baptism and the Lord’s Supper, there is no church. These are the twin signs of the New Covenant, which the Lord Jesus Christ instituted, giving them to His disciples. Protestants called the right administration of these two ordinances the second mark of a true church, the first being the right preaching of the gospel.

Among various Protestant traditions, Baptists have historically distinguished themselves by arguing for a distinctive view of baptism, and in this way earned their moniker. Specifically, Baptists have emphasized the necessity of a conscious profession of faith, calling their view believer’s baptism, whereas other Protestants have put more weight on God’s objective covenantal promises.[2] Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, both differing fundamentally from Protestants, emphasize a sacramental and even sacerdotal function of baptism, uniting the one baptized with the universal church.[3]

This essay, following the historic Baptist position, will argue that true or biblical baptism is the initiatory oath-sign whereby individual believers become partakers in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ, existing Christians affirm new Christians, and Christians initially unite with one another. We will explain this thesis by articulating the meaning of baptism. With this as our focus, we will maintain a particular concentration on the biblical institution of the ordinance.

Jesus’s profound words in Matthew 28:18-20 will serve as a centerpiece for our discussion on baptism. In Matthew’s Gospel this passage is the climax of Jesus’s teaching on the church, and baptism is a key feature. Following the thesis of this essay, we will argue in three parts that baptism means (1) this person is now a Christian, (2) these Christians affirmthis one, and (3) this Christian is now united with these. And, finally, we will offer some practical answers to the questions of baptism’s proper subjects and context.

This Person is Now a Christian

The first biblical command to baptize New Covenant believers and the basic substance for any doctrine of Christian baptism is found in Jesus’s Great Commission at the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel. After Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and before He ascended to the seat of highest authority in the cosmos, Jesus commissioned His disciples to be His remaining witnesses on earth. There is much more to learn from Matthew 28:18-20, but this passage must be our starting point for any discussion of baptism, and we must understand the passage itself as well as how it relates to others.

Evangelical paedobaptists and credobaptists both agree with this starting point. Paedobaptists are those who believe Christian baptism is for believers and their children[4] or “converts” and “their families.”[5] Credobaptists are those who believe Christian baptism is only for new disciples or believers who consciously mean to profess their belief in Jesus Christ. Though they disagree about the subjects of baptism, both paedobaptists and credobaptist agree that Jesus’s Great Commission statement is the place to begin a discussion about baptism. John Dagg (a nineteenth-century credobaptist) and John Sartelle (a twentieth-century paedobaptist), like many others from each camp, both begin their arguments on the meaning of baptism with this same passage.[6]

For clarity, Matthew 28:18-20 says,

“Jesus came and said to [His disciples], ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”[7] 

Christians have long understood that this passage forms the mandate and informs the method of Christian activity in the world until Christ returns. In every generation, those who are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are to give themselves to the task of helping others become and live as Christ’s disciples. Jesus commissioned His people to proliferate, not by the point of the sword or political strategy, but by preaching the gospel and calling sinners to repent (i.e., turn from sin) [8] and believe (i.e., trust in Jesus as Savior and submit to Him as Lord).[9] Those sinners who do repent and believe are to be baptized in the name of the Triune God, brought into fellowship with other believers, and taught to think and act as followers of Christ. This transition, which is the center of our study, from unbeliever to believer or non-Christian to Christian is called conversion.

Robert Stein notes five components of conversion. He writes, “In the experience of becoming a Christian, five integrally related components took place at the same time, usually on the same day: repentance, faith [or belief], confession [or professing belief in Christ], receiving the Holy Spirit, and baptism.”[10] Bobby Jamieson agrees with Stein, but he emphasizes that Baptists view a logical and even a chronological progression, such that one is technically a Christian (i.e., a repenting, believing, and regenerated person) before he or she is biblically baptized.[11] With their Protestant brethren, Baptists believe that justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. However, to Stein’s and Jamieson’s point, we must not overstate this theological reality to the detriment of the visible manifestation of conversion, which speaks of more (though not less) than justification. 

Repentance, belief, and regeneration are not visible in themselves, but baptism is.[12] In fact, baptism is thevisible display of conversion. Moreover, Jamieson says, “as a matter of systematic-theological description, it is appropriate to identify regeneration as a discrete moment which should precede baptism… Yet for all these necessary refinements we need to make sure we can still speak like the Bible speaks.”[13] In other words, we must perceive conversion as a unified compilation of specific actions, of which baptism is one. Indeed, baptism is the visible action which announces and even pledges entrance into the benefits and obligations of the New Covenant. In baptism, the one being baptized is pledging himself to Christ and Christ is pledging Himself as well.

This feature of baptism, which centers on the idea that baptism is the New Covenant oath-sign, is significant in Jamison’s book on the subject. His argument is worth citing at some length here. To begin with, he describes the biblical pattern of “ratifying” a covenant through the use of a “symbolic action,” and he also highlights its “constituting” function.[14] In Genesis 15, for example, the animal-cutting ceremony was a symbolic action which ratified God’s covenantal promises to Abraham. Similarly, circumcision was a covenant-ratifying sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and Jamieson argues that it not only signaled God’s pledge but also Abraham’s (and his descendants’) agreement to keep the terms. He calls the symbolic action, which ratifies and constitutes, an “oath-sign,” wherein “the covenant’s sanctions [were] placed… on those thereby consecrated to the Lord.”[15]

But, as Jamieson notes, “this raises the question… is [baptism] an oath?”[16] He answers, yes. And this is where his argument centers on the passage of greatest interest to us. Jamieson says, “to be baptized into the name of the Trine God is to be initiated into covenantal identification with him.”[17] This is is exactly what Matthew 28:19 calls for, and it is in keeping with Dagg’s older language and argument. Dagg writes, “The place which baptism holds in the commission, indicates its use. The apostles were sent to make disciples, and to teach them to observe all the Saviour’s [sic] commands; but an intermediate act is enjoined, [namely] the act of baptizing them.” Therefore, Dagg says, “This ceremony [i.e., baptism] was manifestly designed to be the initiation into the prescribed service; and every disciple… meets this duty at the entrance of his course.”[18] In other words, baptism is the way New Testament believers declare themselves Christian.

The New Testament teaching on this is point is clear. Baptism is an “appeal to God for a clear conscience;”[19] it publicly calls upon God to grant what He has promised in Christ. Baptism is “into Christ,” and those who are baptized “have put on Christ”[20] Baptism unites the believer to the “death” of Christ, even mysteriously “burying” the believer “with Him,” and also unites the believer to a “resurrection like” Christ’s.[21] Thus, repentance and faith are surely the first responses of the new believer when he or she hears and understands the gospel (at least in a logical and theological sense), but baptism is the initial visible response, whereby the believer is signaled to have converted from the “domain of darkness and transferred… to the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son.”[22] Baptism is the way a new believer makes a public confession of faith in the Lord [i.e., King] Jesus Christ.

One final remark in this section will also lead us into the next. This covenantal identification in baptism is a pledge or oath from both directions – from the one baptized and from heaven itself. From the one baptized, the pledge or oath is to publicly commit oneself to Jesus Christ as Lord. It is a promise to “obey all that [Christ] commands” as His disciple.[23] From heaven, the pledge or oath is a formal and public answer to the request implicit in calling upon Christ as Savior. But how does the new disciple know that his or her plea for acceptance has been answered in the affirmative? Who actually makes the heavenly declaration, “This person is indeed a Christian”? The answer is the church.

These Christians Affirm This One

Baptism is the way new disciples become public or visible Christians, and baptism is also the way existing disciples affirm new ones. In fact, it is manifestly obvious that this second feature necessarily corresponds to the prior claim. The previous section dealt with the idea that baptism is the visible sign of conversion, but one cannot baptize himself. An existing Christian (usually an assembly of them) is a necessary and responsible participant in this Christ-instituted act.

In this section we must further consider baptism as part of the overall process of conversion in order to better understand the necessary role of existing Christians. In fact, building on the previous claim, we must continue with a necessary correlation. In making judgments about who is and who is not a Christian, existing Christians speak for Jesus in the authorized administration of the ordinances. But this requires an explanation which must reach further back into Matthew’s Gospel before we proceed.

Some theologians have observed that Matthew 28:18-20 is not only a foundational text for understanding baptism, but also a climactic one. Jonathan Leeman has argued that Jesus’s Great Commission is the zenith of the major theme in Matthew’s Gospel – the authorization of kingdom representatives to speak with the authority of King Jesus in the world.[24] Leeman, as John Cotton did before him, especially sees this theme hitting significant points along the way in Matthew 16:13-20 and 18:15-20.[25]

There is no room for a full exposition here, but Leeman argues that these two passages together speak positively[26] and negatively,[27] describing Jesus’s authorization for His disciples (specifically an assembly of them “gathered in [His] name”)[28] to make judgments regarding the “what” and the “who” of Christ’s kingdom in the world. In Matthew 16, Jesus’s disciples are authorized to speak positively, binding right confessors within the boundaries of Christ’s kingdom. In Matthew 18, they are authorized to speak negatively, loosing those who do not live in keeping with a right confession from the kingdom boundaries. Leeman says, “Jesus means to build his church not on persons or truths, but on persons (who) confessing the right truths (what) – on confessors.”[29]

So then, when he finally arrives at Matthew 28:18-20, Leeman understands that Christ is announcing that He does indeed possess all authority in heaven and on earth, and that His disciples are now to speak with His cosmic authority, which Christ has authorized them to do (in Matthew 16 and 18). Particularly, they are to exercise their “jurisdictional and legal, revelatory and interpretive speech” in the use of the ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.[30] Speaking particularly of baptism, Leeman says, “To baptize someone ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matt. 28:19) is to make a truth claim about a person’s union with Christ and citizenship in Christ’s kingdom.”[31]This is the heavenly pledge, speaking in the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ, which corresponds with the believer’s pledge in baptism.

Baptism, then, according to Matthew 28:18-20 (full of pregnant meaning from Matthew 16:13-20 and 18:15-20), is the way a new disciple becomes a public or visible Christian, but only in so far as this one is affirmed by these existing Christians. Baptism is the initiatory oath-sign whereby individual believers become partakers in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ, but only if the existing New Covenant community (i.e., the local church) authoritatively provides the heavenly affirmation through baptism. And, of course, this is exactly the way we see the earliest disciples practice baptism as they began to preach the gospel and bring new converts into churches (or forming them as such) throughout the book of Acts. 

From the hub of Matthew 28:18-20, these other baptism passages jut out as spokes of the doctrinal wheel. In Acts 2, Peter was the first disciple to bear public witness to Jesus Christ by preaching the gospel on the day of Pentecost. When some in the crowd responded by asking, “What shall we do?”, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized.”[32] And “those who received his word were baptized,” and there “were added” to the existing New Covenant community “about three thousand souls.”[33] 

In our next section we will consider further the direct link between baptism and church membership, but presently we can already see some consistent application of the authorization, the mandate, and the method described above. Peter preached the gospel, called for unbelievers to repent and believe, and urged those who believed to be baptized. The invisible realities (regeneration, repentance, and belief) were immediately visualized in the act of baptism, which gave a clear historical record of thousands of confessing converts in a single day.

It must be acknowledged that in Acts 2 there is no explicit mention of baptizing the existing disciples in order toaffirm them as new converts. A strong argument could be made, however, that such an affirmation is the necessary implication of baptism since Jesus’s commissioning statement (in Matthew 28) and His previous teaching and authorization (in Matthew 16 and 18) ought to be assumed even when such features are not explicit. This is not an argument from silence, but an argument of consistency; Jesus taught previously that this is what baptism is. But as the gospel expands, and as more people are converted, the text does become explicit in describing how the earliest disciples understood their responsibility and authorization to judge and affirm (by baptism) only those whom they believed were included among the New Covenant community.

In Acts 8 the responsibility of authorization is implied by the apostolic visit to Samaria from Jerusalem. After persecution intensified in Jerusalem, Philip traveled into Samaria, and he preached the “good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ.”[34] There were some who “paid attention” to Philip’s teaching, and they “believed” Philip’s message, thus, “they were baptized.”[35] In Samaria, Philip was the only existing disciple at first, so he alone was the one who affirmed these new Samarian converts by baptism. It is significant, however, that “when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John.”[36] This appears to reinforce the biblical understanding that Christian affirmation was an essential aspect of baptism, since the Christians in Jerusalem seem to have acted on their responsibility to investigate and participate in what is going on in Samaria. 

In Acts 10, the responsibility on the part of existing Christians to make judgments about who is in and who is out of the New Covenant by way of baptism becomes obvious. The Apostle Peter received special revelation from God that the gospel promises were not only for Jews but also Gentiles. By divine appointment, Peter preached the gospel to a gathered group of Gentiles whom God regenerated, as evidenced by their “speaking in tongues and extolling God.”[37]Peter’s next words are telling. He asked, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”[38] What are we to make of this question if not that Peter and his believing companions were acting on their perceived responsibility to judge the who and the what of the kingdom of Christ by either granting or withholding baptism? The clearest and most obvious understanding is that they were pronouncing their divinely-authorized judgment. These Christians (in this case Peter and those with him) were publicly affirming this one as a partaker in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ by baptizing him (in this case Cornelius and those of his household). 

In summary, we have demonstrated in the first section that biblical baptism is the initiatory oath-sign whereby individual believers become partakers in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ. We have demonstrated in this second section that both an individual confessor and an existing Christian (at least one) are necessary and responsible participants in this Christ-instituted act. In the next section, we will argue that Christ’s authorization to judge who is in and who is out of Christ’s visible kingdom is normally the prerogative of the local church. Indeed, baptism not only visibly unites new believers to Christ, but it also unites new believers with a visible assembly of existing ones.

This Christian is United with These

In our day, the assumptions of individualism and some sort of personal autonomy are pervasive. One is much more likely to think of their conversion as a personal and private act, rather than a communal one in any way dependent upon others. However, an overemphasis on the personal requirements of repentance, faith, and regeneration does violence to the biblical notion of conversion. Indeed, the invisible components of conversion are essential for one’s inclusion in the kingdom of Christ, but we live during the age when such a kingdom has not yet been fully displayed. In our age, the kingdom of Christ takes visible shape in the form of local churches, gathered in Christ’s name, marked off by the ordinances which the Lord Jesus authorized as the signs of covenantal citizenship. And, by definition, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper can only be practiced in community.

Drawing together the various strands of teaching we have already considered, we must return to the hub of our wheel. In Christ’s commission, His ordaining or decreeing instruction for baptism, He commanded existing disciples to baptize new ones in the name of the Triune God. This command sets atop Christ’s teaching that the door in and out of His visible kingdom is operated by those who “gather” in His “name.”[39] The ones who make the good confession concerning Christ, as Peter did, are “bound” within the “kingdom of heaven.”[40] Those who live in keeping with the good confession remain visibly within the New Covenant community, the “brotherhood” of Christ’s kingdom or church.[41] But those who do not repent of sin and continue in unbelief are to be treated as “a Gentile and a tax collector.”[42] This is old covenant language which means that the unrepentant sinner is to be considered outside of or “loosed” from the covenant community.[43] All of this is not to say that local churches are authorized by Christ to make the decisive statement on one’s inclusion or exclusion from the New Covenant itself, but it is to say that Christ has authorized local churches to make the only sort of judgment that can be observed before that final day when Christ shall render His ultimate verdict.[44]

The direction we are headed now requires us to make a distinction between the invisible and visible kingdom of Christ, the universal Church and the local church. The kingdom of Jesus Christ shall one day become visible in the eschaton, the glorious age to come when God Himself will make all things new in Christ. We see this displayed in the “great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” singing the song of salvation.[45] Near the end of the book of Revelation, the Apostle John saw “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,”[46] and the “holy city” is the kingdom of Christ in which God will “dwell with” His people.[47] That eschatological kingdom of Christ – the assembly of all those who persevere in faith – is sure to come, but it is not yet visible.[48] What is visible now is the kingdom of Christ that shows up in the form of local churches, and baptism is the observable act which demonstrates who is numbered among Christ’s kingdom-citizens.

Stanton Norman has written, “Christian baptism is… only… [for] those persons whose allegiance belongs exclusively to Jesus Christ.”[49] In other words, those people who pledge allegiance to Christ above all else are baptized as an official pronouncement of their citizenship in Christ’s kingdom. Others have drawn upon the idea of an “embassy” to describe the local church on this conceptual basis.[50] And, since baptism is the way Christians initially affirm new believers, it serves as a sort of passport for citizens of Christ’s kingdom on earth. But without physical boundaries or geographical lines on a map, Christ’s kingdom is more like a foreign nation existing in the form of scattered outposts among the kingdoms or nations of this world.

Local churches act as embassies of Christ’s kingdom when they proclaim the message of their King, call present inhabitants of this world to pledge allegiance to Christ (i.e., repent and believe), and authoritatively declare a new citizenship (by baptism) to those who exhibit the fruit of regeneration. Baptism, then, is tantamount to membership in the visible kingdom of Christ; it is the door of church membership.[51] Shawn Wright observes, “baptism is the entrance marker of a converted person into the membership and accountability of a local church.”[52] From the nineteenth century, Edward Hiscox wrote, “[baptism] stands at the door [of church membership], and admission [into the church] is only on its reception.”[53] Indeed, Jonathan Watson shows the relationship between baptism and ecclesiology when he writes, “A local church administers baptism to persons as a means of making them disciples… Thus, the doctrine of the church – its fellowship and obedient mission in the world – is bound up with this rite as well.”[54]

Rustin Umstattd, a contemporary Baptist theologian, agrees with this point as far as it goes. He writes, “The baptism in the Great Commission was both a profession of faith by the one coming to Christ and recognition by the church that he was being accepted into Christ.”[55] But in the same article, in which he advocates against delaying baptism, Umstattd seems to overemphasize the profession to the detriment of the recognition. He says, “delayed baptism, for evidentiary purposes, causes the church to abandon (de facto, if not de jure) the concept of credobaptism, in favor of what one might call ‘certo-baptism,’ this latter idea being defined as the baptism of someone whose bona fides have been underwritten officially by a local church.”[56] However, one’s bona fides is precisely what a church is recognizing and underwriting by baptizing a new believer.[57] The one desirous of baptism may indeed be regenerate and believing, but the church is responsible to make a judgment regarding this very question.[58]

It is important to note here that Baptists make no claim of infallibility with regard to a local church’s decision to baptize a confessor into membership in Christ’s visible kingdom. Wright says, “When a church receives a person as a member, they are saying, ‘As far as we can tell, you are one of us. You have been born again. You are a pilgrim along with us on your way to heaven’” (emphasis added).[59] Donald Ackland makes it clear that Baptists today “can lay no claim to a full measure of apostolic discernment;” therefore, he says, “we should exercise every care in determining that those who seek the privilege of church membership possess the basic spiritual qualifications.”[60] Thus, baptism and church membership do not confer salvation, nor is baptism an affirmation that cannot err. And yet, Baptist churches do mean to include only regenerate confessors, those who presently pledge allegiance to Christ and demonstrate the sort of behavior that accompanies repentance and faith.[61]

In summary, we have attempted to show that baptism is the way new disciples become visible Christians, inherently joined with other visible Christians. It is not the only or even the “legitimizing” feature of conversion, but baptism the biblical way Christians make a public profession of faith and become partakers, along with other partakers, in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ.[62] We have also argued that there is a necessary correlation between a public profession of faith and a public affirmation of that profession. Simply put, existing disciples must affirm new ones by way of baptism; no one baptizes himself, and baptism is intrinsically an affirmative judgment. And, finally, we have labored to explain the biblical, logical, and historical connection baptism has with church membership. Baptism is the initial way new disciples unite with others, and this normally occurs in the context of the local church.

Subjects and Context of Baptism

Having defined baptism, we should confront a common assumption that appears to pervade modern Christianity in America. Some church leaders and Christian authors do not seem to think there is any such thing as a disordered baptism, even less a false one.[63] All is fair game, and each believer should feel personal freedom in answering the questions of who should be baptized and how. Some emphasize an interest in maximizing the number of baptisms while avoiding altogether questions about propriety or fidelity to Scripture’s teaching on the subject. 

Kelly Bean, in her book How to Be a Christian Without Going to Church, describes what she calls “alternative forms of Christian community.” She calls them “non-goers,” those people, like her, who call themselves “Christian” and even “faithful,”[64] but who also purposefully avoid membership with any local church. She argues that this group is growing in number, and she thinks this is just part of the inevitable change that must always happen. When she finally does address the subject of the ordinances or sacraments, she says these can be easily adapted to various forms of uncommitted and untethered faith-communities. She says, “Sometimes non-goers will assemble with other non-goers in a small community to share in the sacraments of communion or baptism… Most non-goers understand themselves to be part of the priesthood of all believers and accept responsibility and authority for administration of the sacraments.”[65]Bean is representative of a large number of professing Christians who feel perfectly free to practice the ordinances in any way that seems right to them.

It is not just untethered Christians who feel this freedom. Some church leaders seem to believe the increased number of baptisms justifies any loss of biblical warrant for their practices. Elevation Church produced a “How-To Guide” for “Spontaneous Baptisms,” which called for other churches to follow the method and pattern they used.[66]They recorded between 13% and 18% of their audience followed in baptism at the “Spontaneous Baptism event” in 2008, and between 9% and 16% in 2011. “Volunteers played a vital role,” they said, and they called for “15 people [to] sit in the worship experience and be the first ones to move when Pastor gives the call.” Other volunteers are to be arranged in the hallways to “create an atmosphere of Celebration.” The key throughout the “How-To Guide” is speed and efficiency, a “smooth interaction” and avoiding any “slow down” in “traffic flow.” Those being baptized are encouraged to “tweet… that they are being baptized today,” and volunteers are “looking for 1 or 2 great stories” from among the people in their “group” awaiting baptism. And yet, there seems to be little time for any sort of pastoral inquiry. There is no information in the guide to call for screening some out of the throngs wanting to be baptized, and church membership is not mentioned either. It is not clear that these baptisms are connected in any way to membership at Elevation Church.

Professing Christians seeking alternative forms of community and church leaders calling for spontaneous baptisms both seem to be heading in the exact opposite direction of the meaning of baptism urged in this essay and exemplified in history. Shawn Wright provides a voice of reason when he says, “those who are to be baptized should be presented to the fellowship for its approval before the baptism. One of the responsibilities of a fellowship is to receive its members… It is therefore the congregation’s responsibility to hear the testimony of the one to be baptized so that they might then receive him into their membership in a meaningful way.”[67] Yes, this is the sort of practice in keeping with the meaning of baptism articulated above. The matter we are concerned with here is orderly baptism, as opposed to disordered baptism. 

Who, then, should be baptized? 

Only those people with a credible profession of faith should be recommended for baptism. A proper confessor is one who has heard and understood the gospel of Jesus Christ, who has understood the basic requirements of ongoing repentance and faith, and demonstrates at least some evidence of spiritual life. Because baptism is an affirmation that this one is a Christian, those Christians affirming such a thing must take some care to know – as best as they are able – if the one to be baptized is actually born again. Such a practice will usually necessitate some passage of time, since the Christians affirming a new believer will need to know something about the person to be baptized. Is she repenting of sin? Is he showing love for Christ and love for other Christians? Does she seem willing to pursue holiness alongside the Christians among this local church? All of these questions and more will need time to answer. Baptism is more than a profession of faith, though not less, and those Christians responsible for affirming such a profession must love potential converts enough to help them assess whether they possess saving faith.[68]

When should a professing believer be baptized? 

Since baptism is a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and since baptism is to be observed in the name of Jesus or in the name of the triune God, it is most appropriate to closely join the practice of baptism with the preaching or proclaiming of the gospel message. Furthermore, because baptism unites a new believer with existing ones, it would be most appropriate to baptize a new believer among the gathering of a local church. Since churches regularly gather on the Lord’s Day, baptism would be best observed in the context of a formal church liturgy. Having gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the congregation has heard the gospel proclaimed, they have sung songs affirming the gospel, they have prayed prayers to the triune God, and they should now see the initiatory oath-sign of the gospel promises and requirements.

How should a professing believer be baptized? 

There is consensus among scholars today that the New Testament practice was baptism by immersion.[69] Moreover, the action of immersing a person in water clearly visualizes the ideas baptism is meant to convey – death of the old self with Christ, cleansing of sin, rising to live a new life in a new way. Thus, professing believers ought to be baptized in the name of the triune God by fully immersing them in water. There may be rare occasions when sufficient water is not available or other complicating factors that make full immersion highly difficult for a particular person, such as bodily ailments that should not be exposed to water. Immersion is the proper or orderly form of baptism, but it is not of the essence of the ordinance. However, every effort should be made to practice full immersion. Similarly, it is not essential for a pastor or elder to perform the baptism, but it is appropriate for such a one to do so, since a pastor or elder is publicly recognized as one who faithfully preaches and teachers the gospel among a particular congregation.

Conclusion

Baptists have historically believed that baptism is not essential for salvation, but they have never believed that baptism was a dispensable feature of Christian conversion. Indeed, Baptists are Baptists precisely because of their high view and applied practice of baptism. Baptists have sometimes spoken more harshly than necessary against those whom they believed practiced a kind of baptism that is not baptism (i.e., paedobaptism), but this is not the aim here. This essay has attempted to avoid belittling those who disagree, but instead to present a positive case for the consistent practice of believer’s baptism. The goal has been to argue for and explain the biblical meaning and practice of baptism, which, along with regeneration, repentance, and faith, is inseparable from Christian conversion. This ordinance is the initiatory oath-sign whereby the individual believer makes a public profession of faith and existing believers publicly affirm the one being baptized as a partaker in the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ, united with the Savior and also with His people in the world. Stein summarizes it by saying that during the earliest days of Christianity baptism was how the “individual receive[d] Christ,” it was “administered by the church,” and it was “through this experience [that] he or she [became] part of the body of believers.”[70]

Baptism, then, is the subjective display and application of God’s objective promises in the New Covenant. As such, believer’s baptism, as defined in this essay, is vitally important to every Christian and every local church because it best “preserves the pure witness of the gospel.”[71] May God grant that every true church will be a bold witness of the gospel of Christ, and may He also grant that we all seek to adorn the doctrine of the gospel with consistent practices in our churches.

Endnotes

[1] Gregg R. Allison, The Church: An Introduction, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021). 107.

[2] Bannerman argues, “there belongs to [baptism] the… character of a seal, confirming and attesting a federal transaction between God and the believer.” And “if Baptism be the seal of a federal transaction between the party baptized and Christ; if this be the main and characteristic feature of the ordinance… it would appear as if there were no small difficulty in the way of admitting to the participation of it those who, by reason of nonage, can be no parties to the engagement in virtue of their own act or will… the primary and ruling consideration in the controversy must be the express Divine appointment on the subject.” James Bannerman, The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church, Franklin Classics, vol. 2, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Murray and Gibbs, 1868). 49, 67.

[3] Hans Kung, representing a modern Roman Catholic view, says, “Baptism is… not only a condition but also a guarantee of being made a part of the [universal] Church.” Hans Küng, The Church, trans. Ray Ockenden and Ockenden, Rosaleen, Twelfth (New York, NY: Continuum, 2001). 210. And Miroslav Volf summarizes John D. Zizioulas’s teaching on this point, representing a leading Eastern Orthodox view, saying, “baptism makes the human being into a ‘catholic entity’; not only is that person incorporated into the church [i.e., “baptized… into a network of relationships”], he is also himself made into the church.” Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Sacra Doctrina (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998). 90.

[4] Bannerman argues, “The principle of representation found under the Old Testament is the very principle introduced by the Apostle [in 1 Corinthians 7:14] to explain the position and character of children in the case where no more than one parent is a believer and member of the Church… The Holiness of the one parent that is a member of the Christian Church, communicates relative holiness to the infant, so that the child also is fitted to be a member of the Church, and to be baptized.” James Bannerman, The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church, Franklin Classics, vol. 2, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Murray and Gibbs, 1868). 90.

[5] John P Sartelle, Infant Baptism: What Christian Parents Should Know (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1985). 8.

[6] John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology: A Treatise on Church Order, Second (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2012). 13. John P Sartelle, Infant Baptism: What Christian Parents Should Know (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1985). 6.

[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016). Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture references are from the same.

[8] Acts 2:38, 3:19, 17:30, 26:20; Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:10; 2 Peter 3:9 (and many more).

[9] Acts 2:44, 4:4, 8:12, 10:43, 11:21, 13:48, 16:31; Rom. 1:16, 3:22, 10:9 (and many more).

[10] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2006). 52.

[11] Bobby Jamieson, Going Public: Why Baptism Is Required for Church Membership (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015). 40.

[12] Of course, repentance, belief, and regeneration are all evident in the life of a believer. This seems to be one of the main points of Galatians 5. But these are not immediately or objectively observed. 

[13] Jamieson, 40.

[14] Ibid, 64.

[15] Ibid, 64.

[16] Ibid, 64.

[17] Jamieson, 69.

[18] Dagg, 71.

[19] 1 Peter 3:21.

[20] Galatians 3:27.

[21] Romans 6:3-5.

[22] Colossians 1:13

[23] Matthew 28:20.

[24] Jonathan Leeman, Don’t Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism (Nasville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016). 74-109.

[25] John Cotton, The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: And Power Thereof, According to the Word of God, ed. P. Joseph (Copppell, TX: Independent, 2021). Cotton does not explicitly connect Matthew 28 with chapters 16 and 18, but Cotton argues much as Leeman does regarding the “keys of the kingdom.” The “keys” refer to the authority of the local church to speak on Christ’s behalf in the matters of true Christian doctrine and true Christian converts. Cotton is a paedobaptist Congregationalist, and Leeman is a credobaptist congregationalist, but they both see a good bit of the same substance in Matthew 16 and 18.

[26] Matthew 16:13-20 speaks positively, demonstrating by Peter’s example what a good confession and a good confessor is. Peter received Jesus’s own blessing and affirmation, and then Jesus authorized all future judgments to “bind” or include right confessors with right confessions within the New Covenant community (i.e., the earthly kingdom of Christ).

[27] Matthew 18:15-20 speaks negatively, demonstrating what the church is authorized to do with an unnamed “brother” who “sins” without repentance. Jesus authorized all future judgments that would expel or “loose” any unrepentant sinner from the New Covenant community (i.e., the earthly kingdom of Christ).

[28] Matthew 18:20.

[29] Leeman, Don’t Fire Your Church Members. 75.

[30] Ibid, 81.

[31] Ibid, 81.

[32] Acts 2:37-38.

[33] Acts 2:41.

[34] Acts 8:12.

[35] Acts 8:11-12.

[36] Acts 8:14.

[37] Acts 10:46.

[38] Acts 10:47.

[39] Matthew 18:20.

[40] Matthew 16:19.

[41] Matthew 18:15.

[42] Matthew 18:17.

[43] Matthew 18:18.

[44] Revelation 20:11-15, 21:7-8.

[45] Revelation 7:9-10.

[46] Revelation 21:1-2.

[47] Revelation 21:3; see also the expanded description in verses 9-21 of a “city” with a “great wall” which likely matches the distance of the entire Hellenistic empire in the first century.

[48] See the repeated use of the word “conquer” throughout Revelation (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21, etc.), meaning “persevere” or “keep” faith in Christ (Rev. 2:26), and the specific promise in Revelation 21:7, “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

[49] R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005). 134.

[50] Jamieson, 88. and Jonathan Leeman, “The Church: Universal and Local,” TGC: U.S. Edition (blog), accessed July 2, 2022, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-church-universal-and-local/.

[51] Norman does not seem to know of any “Christian group” that does not “perceive baptism as the initiatory rite into church membership.” R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005). 134. There are known historical exceptions, however, including the Quakers and the Salvation Army, each holding idiosyncratic views on baptism. It may also be noteworthy that the modern development of non-denominational churches (which are often disconnected from historic Christian doctrine), the recent practice of spontaneous baptisms, and the increase of ecclesiastically isolated para-church ministries (which sometimes take it upon themselves to practice a strange and untethered form of the ordinances) have all begun to dissociate baptism and church membership (in practice, if not in theological argumentation). 

[52] Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, eds., Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2015). 124.

[53] Edward T. Hiscox, The New Directory for Baptist Churches (Coppell, TX: SolidChristianBooks.com, 2022). 83.

[54] Jonathan Watson, “The Ongoing ‘Use’ of Baptism: A Hole in the Baptist (Systematic) Baptistry?,” Southwestern Journal of Theology61, Fall 2018, 9-10.

[55] Rustin Umstattd, “Credo v. Certo Baptism: How Delaying Baptism May Change Its Meaning from Profession of Faith to Evidence of Sanctification,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, Spring 2018, 6.

[56] Ibid, 4.

[57] Robert Matz avoids this responsibility of the congregation entirely in his argument concerning the cognitive abilities of children. His focus is on the understanding of the child, but he does not address a congregation’s responsibility to observe apparent evidence of regeneration. He says, “cognitive developmental studies do not provide justification for restricting baptism from children… Children who can independently reason about faith, repentance, the Christian gospel and conversion and who can explain how such concepts apply to themselves personally should be affirmed as converts and baptized.” Robert Matz, “The Cognitive Abilities of Children and Southern Baptist Baptismal Restrictions,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 61, no. 1 (Fall 2018): 43–61. 60-61.

[58] See Klopfer’s emphasis on the intrinsically social nature of baptism. Specifically, she says, “The idea that baptism, like salvation, is personal needs careful clarification and reflection in order to be helpful to Baptists of the twenty-first century. Personal here does not mean private of privatized, words that are often used interchangeably. Personal is not the individual conscience or isolated ego, demanding that it be baptized as a rugged individualist in defiance of all family, church, and societal traditions.” Sheila Klopfer, “From Personal Salvation to Personal Baptism: The Shaping Influence of Evangelical Theology on Baptism,” Baptist History and Heritage, Summer/Fall 2010, 76.

[59] Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, eds., Baptist Foundations. 126.

[60] Donald F. Ackland, Joy in Church Membership (Nashville, TN: Convention Press, 1955). 14.

[61] This is, in fact, a Baptist distinctive known as regenerate church membership. Historically, this conviction not only affects the way Baptists have practiced baptism, but also the way they have practiced the Lord’s Supper and church discipline.

[62] Robert Stein observed “that it is the gift of the Spirit that legitimizes the experience of baptism, not vice versa.” Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2006). 45.

[63] The terms disordered and false each qualify the term baptism. A disordered baptism is true Christian baptism, but it has occurred in such a way so as to distance itself more or less from accurately communicating the meaning of baptism outlined in this essay. A false baptism in one or more ways neglects or denies in its practice the essential features of Christian baptism.

[64] Kelly Bean, How to Be a Christian Without Going to Church: The Unofficial Guide to Alternative Forms of Christian Community(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2014). 10.

[65] Bean, 166.

[66] “Spontaneous Baptisms How-To Guide” (Elevation Church, August 2011).

[67] Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, eds., Baptist Foundations. 125-126.

[68] Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10; James 2:14-17.

[69] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2006). 81.

[70] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2006). 63.

[71] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2006). 3.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackland, Donald F. Joy in Church Membership. Nashville, TN: Convention Press, 1955.

Allison, Gregg R. The Church: An Introduction. Short Studies in Systematic Theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.

Bannerman, James. The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church. Franklin Classics. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Murray and Gibbs, 1868.

———. The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church. Franklin Classics. Vol. 2. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Murray and Gibbs, 1868.

Bean, Kelly. How to Be a Christian Without Going to Church: The Unofficial Guide to Alternative Forms of Christian Community. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014.

Cotton, John. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: And Power Thereof, According to the Word of God. Edited by P. Joseph. Copppell, TX: Independent, 2021.

Dagg, John L. Manual of Theology: A Treatise on Church Order. Second. Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2012.

Dever, Mark, and Jonathan Leeman, eds. Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2015. 

Duesing, Jason G. “The Church.” In Historical Theology For the Church, 231–74. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2021.

Hiscox, Edward T. The New Directory for Baptist Churches. Coppell, TX: Independent, 2022.

Jamieson, Bobby. Going Public: Why Baptism Is Required for Church Membership. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015.

Keach, Benjamin. The Glory of a True Church. Kindle. Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2018.

Klopfer, Sheila. “From Personal Salvation to Personal Baptism: The Shaping Influence of Evangelical Theology on Baptism.” Baptist History and Heritage, no. Summer/Fall 2010: 65–79.

Leeman, Jonathan. Don’t Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism. Nasville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016.

———. “The Church: Universal and Local.” TGC: U.S. Edition (blog). Accessed July 2, 2022. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-church-universal-and-local/.

Matz, Robert. “The Cognitive Abilities of Children and Southern Baptist Baptismal Restrictions.” Southwestern Journal of Theology, Fall 2018: 43–61.

Norman, R. Stanton. The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005.

Sartelle, John P. Infant Baptism: What Christian Parents Should Know. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1985.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Matthew R. Crawford. The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes. NAC Studies in Bible & Theology. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Shawn D. Wright, eds. Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. NAC Studies in Bible & Theology. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2006.

“Spontaneous Baptisms How-To Guide.” Elevation Church, August 2011.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

Umstattd, Rustin. “Credo v. Certo Baptism: How Delaying Baptism May Change Its Meaning from Profession of Faith to Evidence of Sanctification.” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, Spring 2018: 3–14.

Volf, Miroslav. After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Sacra Doctrina. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Watson, Jonathan. “The Ongoing ‘Use’ of Baptism: A Hole in the Baptist (Systematic) Baptistry?” Southwestern Journal of Theology, Fall 2018: 3–27.

Witherow, Thomas. I Will Build My Church: Selected Writings on Church Polity, Baptism, and the Sabbath. Edited by Jonathan Gibson. Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2021.

What is a Calvinist?

John Calvin (1509-1564) was a French theologian and pastor who spent most of his ministry in Geneva, Switzerland. Calvin was a major influencer during the Protestant Reformation, preaching and teaching with the fervor of a man who seemed wholly-devoted to Christ.

Calvin preached and taught expositionally through the Bible, leaving behind many commentaries on the biblical text and other insightful books on Christian belief and practice. However, Calvin’s most notable work is known as “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” which is a magnificent theological treatise. Systematic theology texts are quite numerous today, but before Calvin such a thing was rare indeed.

Calvin’s writings create a bit of difficulty for anyone to answer my main question here – What is a Calvinist? – since his Institutes alone clearly demonstrate that Calvin’s theological system and contributions were both much more expansive than many Christians suppose today. However, I am going to avoid the worthwhile debate about who is and isn’t a real Calvinist.

Rather, I am going to focus my answer to the main question – What is a Calvinist? – on the popular or common perspective. Most people who claim to be Calvinists today are merely announcing their affirmation of the so-called Five Points of Calvinism, and many modern-day Calvinists don’t even affirm all five.

Ironically, Calvin never arranged or articulated a mere five points of doctrine. The five points popularly known as Calvinism today were not even a bulleted theological structure until after the Remonstrance (followers of Jocobus Arminius) made these points the focus of their opposition – 50 years after Calvin died. Even then, however, they were not arranged as the popluar acronym TULIP. That didn’t happen until at least 200 years later.

At the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), the Remonstrance petitioned the government for an allowance to hold their theological view (throughout history religion and government have been joined more often than not). A similar doctrinal position (called Semi-Pelagiansism) had already been condemned one thousand years earlier (in AD 431 at the Council of Ephesus and again in AD 529 at the Council of Orange), and the Remonstrance wanted to avoid the same designation.

But, alas, the Remonstrance were condemned as well. The Synod of Dort ended with a judgment against Arminianism, declaring it a heresy alongside Semi-Pelagianism. The synod produces several canons (or doctrinal affirmations), some of which became the origins of the so-called Five Points of Calvinism.

The Five Points of Calvinism are:

1) Total Depravity: Fallen humans, since Adam, are thoroughly affected by sin – their bodies, minds, and wills/desires; and unregenerate people are incapable of naturally doing anything genuinely good (Rom. 3:10-18).

2) Unconditional Election: God elects some sinners unto salvation, whereby they become beneficiaries of God’s blessings, not because of any condition in them, but according to the riches of God’s gracious grace and according to the purposes of His divine will (Eph. 1:3-6).

3) Limited Atonement: Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the cross is priceless, sufficient to cover all sin and all sinners, but Christ’s atoning work was intended and effectual only for those who believe and not for anyone else (Jn. 10:14-16).

4) Irresistable Grace: God alone causes sinners to be born again (regeneration is a monergistic act), through the proclamation of the gospel and powerful work of His Holy Spirit (God normally uses means). All who are born again possess new hearts with which they respond in loving affection for God, believing and repenting by His grace (Eph. 2:1-10).

5) Perseverence of the Saints: All sinners whom God has elected unto Himself, those for whom Christ has died, those God has made spiritually alive, will pursue personal holiness in this life and will persevere to the end (Rom. 8:28-39).

Calvinism – as anemically articulated in the five points above – has been the majority view among Protestants. Historically, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans have all affirmed these doctrines. Notable 21st-century theologians and pastors who affirm these doctrines include R.C. Sproul, Ligon Duncan, Albert Mohler, and Mark Dever.

This brief article is only intended as a very simple introduction to this theological system. I suggest much further investigation for the interested Christian, and there are numerous books and articles that might be a help.

In my estimation, Wayne Grudem’s book, Systematic Theology, does a good job of explaining the various views of biblical salvation. This would be a great starting point for further study.

Whether you embrace this view or not, it is vital that all believers look to the Bible as the ultimate authority. It is also important that we humbly and graciously investigate the Bible alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.

What is an Arminian?

Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) was a Dutch theologian during the later period of the Protestant Reformation. Arminius and his followers opposed some points of Reformed theology, which developed more robustly out of the writings and teaching of some of the Reformers. One of the most (maybe the most?) influential and monumental Reformed works ever written is John Calvin‘s “Institutes of the Christian Religion.”

Though they never met (Calvin died when Arminius was 4 years old), Arminius had admiration for Calvin and his outstanding biblical hermeneutics. Arminius once said, “Next to the study of the Scriptures… I exhort my students to read Calvin’s Commentaries carefully and thoroughly… for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture.”

Arminius and his followers (originally called the Remonstrance at the Synod of Dort) did, however, disagree with some points of the Reformed teaching in the area of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). Forty-two ministers organized their opposition to some of Calvin’s Reformed teaching, focusing in on five particular disputed points. These points became the five-pointed dividing line between what later came to be called Arminianism and Calvinism.

Ironically, the five-pointed dividing line became known as “The Five Points of Calvinism,” though Calvin himself had never arranged them as such. The five points or doctrines were not even a bulleted theological structure until after the Remonstrance made them the focus of their opposition – 50 years after Calvin died. Even then, however, the five affirmative doctrinal points were not arranged as TULIP. That didn’t happen until at least 200 years later.

The Five Articles of the Remonstrance represent historic Arminianism. An Arminian, in the popular sense, is someone who affirms the Arminian articles or points over against the Calvinistic or Reformed points.

The Five Articles of the Remonstrance are:

1) Conditional Predestination: God predestines some sinners for salvation, and this predestination is conditionally based on God’s foreknowledge about each person’s anticipated faith or unbelief.

2) Universal Atonement: Christ died for all humans, and God intended His sacrifice for all humans, but only those sinners who accept this atoning work will be saved.

3) Saving Faith: Sinful and Fallen humanity is unable to attain saving faith, unless he is regenerated and renewed by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

4) Resistible Grace: The grace of God is effective, but it is resistible, so man must cooperate with God’s grace to bring about personal salvation.

5) Uncertainty of Perseverance: Although God’s grace is abundant, the sinner can lose that grace and become lost even after he has been saved.

It is important to note that some Arminians may not affirm all five of these articles, or they may not affirm each of them with the same fervor. In recent history, the Arminian system (or some variation of it) has been the most commonly held view among American Evangelicalism. Though, most Evangelicals are not aware of the historic grounding of their doctrinal views.

The Arminian view is widely embraced among many Southern Baptists, Methodists, Nazarenes, and Wesleyans today. C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tower, and Adrian Rogers are three notable men who affirmed (at least generally) an Arminian position. There are others, but these are significant voices, and each represents a distinct platform among culture and Christianity.

This brief article is only intended as a very simple introduction to this theological system. I suggest much further investigation for the interested Christian, and there are numerous books and articles that might be a help.

In my estimation, Wayne Grudem’s book, Systematic Theology, does a good job of explaining the various views of biblical salvation. This would be a great starting point for further study.

Whether you embrace this view or not, it is vital that all believers look to the Bible as the ultimate authority. It is also important that we humbly and graciously investigate the Bible alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.

A Perspective on the Historical Development of “Calvinism”

There is much to be said about Calvinism among American Evangelicals today. In my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, there has been no small amount of concern about the recent resurgence of Calvinistic theology and people claiming to be Calvinists.

In this brief essay, I merely want to offer a fast-paced perspective of how some of the foundational doctrines of Calvinism developed and were articulated throughout church history. This is obviously not an exhaustive report or historical volume. I simply want to offer the average reader an opportunity to gain an introductory perspective of how we arrived here in American Evangelicalism.

John Calvin did not invent “Calvinism”

The five doctrines, known as the “Five Points of Calvinism,” or “TULIP,” or “the Doctrines of Grace,” were not articulated as “five points” until sometime in the 1800s. John Calvin was born in 1509 and he died in 1564. As a matter of fact, the doctrines in focus in the “Five Points of Calvinism” were only collected in a group when students of a Dutch theologian, named Jacobus Arminius, protested these doctrines in a town called Dort, in the Netherlands (1618-19). Arminius was born in 1560, so he was 4 years old when Calvin died, and his students never met Calvin at all.

I will say more about the “Five Points of Calvinism” in a bit, and I will even give a brief overview of the acrostic “TULIP,” but before I do, let me show you that these doctrines were already in focus way back in the early church. In fact, the “T” in TULIP (standing for Total Depravity) can at least be traced back to a theological debate among churchmen in the fourth-century.

Augustine vs. Pelagius on Total Depravity[1]

Late in the fourth-century (like 398-99 AD), a North-African bishop by the name of Augustine wrote the longest prayer known to man. It was a 300+ page autobiography, emphasizing his own conversion to Christ from paganism, which was entirely written as a prayer. It was a best-selling book at that time, and you can still find it in print today because Christians have recognized Augustine’s tremendous biblical insight and humble honesty.

In this book, Augustine wrote,

“My whole hope is in Your exceedingly great mercy and that alone. You command self-control from us, but I am sure that no one can have self-control unless You give it to him. Grant what You command and command what You will (or in some translations: whatever pleases You).”

Essentially, Augustine was claiming that fallen humans (i.e. sinful humans after Genesis 3) cannot do anything genuinely good unless or until God enables them to do so. This claim is basic to the doctrine known as “Total Depravity.”

Total Depravitydoes not mean that fallen humans are as bad as they could be… as though a sinner could not possibly be any worse than he or she already is. We all know that we could be much worse than we are right now. Instead, Total Depravityis the doctrinal understanding that fallen humans are affected by sin in such a way so that no part of the person is left untouched by sin (our body, our minds, and our will or desires).

Augustine’s view of fallen humanity was built upon biblical descriptions of the sinful corruption of fallen humans.

For example, Romans 3:10-12says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Or Ephesians 2:1-3speaks of the deadness of man’s soul and the corruption of his desires. The Apostle Paul wrote to Christians, saying, “you were [once] dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Pelagius, an ascetic monk and theologian who lived during the same time period as Augustine, read Augustine’s book and didn’t like that particular part of Augustine’s prayer.

Pelagius said, “How can God hold humans responsible for not doing what they cannot do? Man is either utterly free to obey the commands of God, or God’s commands are unjust… God is unjust.”

Pelagius argued that even fallen humans must be able to obey God’s commands without God’s help (i.e. without God’s gracious and active intervention). Whatever sinful corruption humans suffer after the fall of Adam, Pelagius argued, these effects have not taken away man’s ability to do genuine good and obey God’s commands.

Unlike Augustine, Pelagius does not have any surviving works today, so historians don’t know very much about him. His students were the ones who picked up his cause against Augustine’s doctrines of man’s depravity and God’s sovereignty, and the doctrinal dispute came to a head at the Council of Ephesusin 431 AD. That gathering of Christian pastors and theologians declared Pelagianism an officialheresy– a doctrine that is outside of the umbrella of Christianity (an unbiblical teaching of a First-Level doctrine).

On a side note: Southern Baptists have historically agreed with Augustine and the Council of Ephesus on this matter. The Baptist Faith and Message states, “Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin.” Therefore, anyone who disagrees with Augustine or John Calvin on the nature of fallen humans must also admit that they disagree with Southern Baptists.

Though Pelagianism was outed as an official heresy in 431 AD, a similar doctrinal teaching emerged among Christians only about 100 years later (called Semi-Pelagianism). In this modified view, Semi-Pelagians claimed that fallen humans do not have the ability to do genuinely good things, but they argued that there was a general distribution of God’s grace among all humans, which brought every person back to a neutral position from which they could choose to do good or evil (this is known as “prevenient grace”).

In 529 AD, Semi-Pelagianism was also condemned as a heresy at the Council of Orange(in southern France). For the next 1,000 years, Augustine’s view of natural man’s inability to choose genuine good (Total Depravity) was the standard of orthodox Christian doctrine in Western Christianity. And yet, Semi-Pelagianism remained a constant doctrinal rival to the orthodox view, sometimes gaining and sometimes losing ground. In fact, the doctrine of “prevenient grace” was a dividing line between Roman Catholicism and Protestants during the Reformation.

Protestant Reformers vs. Roman Catholic Church on “Monergism”

During the Protestant Reformation, this millennium-old doctrinal dispute came to the fore again. This time theological terms were coined to describe the work of regeneration (This is the biblical term associated with the concept of being “born again”). The argument was set something like this: If fallen humans are in fact unable to do genuine good unless or until God enables them to do so(i.e. Total Depravity), then God must be the one who acts alone upon dead sinners to make them spiritually alive and desirous of genuine good.

Of course, this kind of reasoning was not invented by mere philosophy. This argumentation is directly drawn from Scripture. Consider Ephesians 2:1-8.

“1 You were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…”

The doctrinal divide between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church is best summed up in two words: Monergismand Synergism.

Monergism literally means “one unit working.” Monergism, in our theological discussion, declares “God alone works to regenerate the sinner.” In other words, regeneration is an act or work of God’s grace, to which the sinner responds with faith and repentance… one has faith because he/she is born again… one is not born again because of faith.

The Protestant Reformers argued that fallen humans can do nothing to save themselves or even to make themselves savable. Salvation (particularly regeneration) is by the grace of God alone, and the sinner is merely a passive beneficiary of this miraculous divine work.

Synergism literally means “units working together.” Synergism, in our theological discussion, declares “God and the sinner cooperate in the work of regeneration.” In other words, regeneration is the cooperative work of both God and the sinner… one is born again partly because he/she has faith and partly because God graciously works spiritual life in them.

The Roman Catholic Church argued that fallen humans are indeed sinful, but God distributes “prevenient grace” to all people everywhere, which brings humans to something of a neutral state in their desire for good and evil. The sinner cooperates with this “prevenient grace” in order to prepare himself/herself (by doing genuine good) to receive God’s saving grace. In this way the Roman Catholic Church brought Semi-Pelagianism back from the heresy trashcan.

On a side note: If you are wondering where Southern Baptists land on this issue, we may look again to the Baptist Faith and Message, which says, “As soon as they [i.e. humans] are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God [i.e. God’s commands].” The Baptist Faith and Message goes on to say, “Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit [i.e. brought about by the Holy Spirit] through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Note that the Baptist Faith and Message says that ‘repentance’ and ‘faith’ are how the sinner ‘responds’ to the gracious work of regeneration. In other words, regeneration is the act of God alone, which precedes faith… This is a clear affirmation of Monergism. So, again we find that those who disagree with John Calvin (also a Monergist) are in disagreement with Southern Baptists as well.

Before there was such a thing as a Southern Baptist, and even before John Calvin was a theologian, Protestant Reformers were Monergists. Peter Waldo (born 1140), John Wycliffe (born in 1330), Jan Hus (born 1369), Martin Luther (born 1483), Ulrich Zwingli (born in 1484), Thomas Cranmer (born 1489), William Farel (born 1489), Martin Bucer (born 1491), and William Tyndale (born in 1494) were all Monergists. John Calvin wasn’t born until 1509, and Martin Luther published his masterful book (Bondage of the Will), describing the inability of man’s will and the necessity of God’s monergistic work, when John Calvin was only 16 years old.

The reason for citing all of this is, once again, to say that John Calvin did not invent what is known today as “Calvinism.” The “Five Points of Calvinism” or “TULIP,” as we shall see, is the summary of doctrines that have deep roots in Christian history. But, Christians have been looking to the Bible a long time for answers to all kinds of questions. Many of the questions that center on salvation are at the heart of Christian doctrine.

The Five Points of Calvinism

As I mentioned earlier, what often goes under the heading of “Calvinism” today was not the invention of John Calvin. In fact, anyone who has read Calvin’s writings would know that Calvin would be horrified to learn that Christians have used his name to label any doctrine. Calvin was a bookish introvert, who almost never spoke or wrote about himself. His life’s work was given to studying, preaching, and teaching the Bible. Many Christian theologians today think that Calvin was the best Christian mind up to that point in history (the 1500s), but Calvin wanted nothing of any celebrity status. At Calvin’s request, his body was buried in a mass unmarked grave when he died, because he did not want any fuss made about his burial place.

So where did the so-called “Five Points” come from? When did the TULIPs bloom? Well, simply put, it is not clear exactly when the acrostic “TULIP” was fist formulated.

As I said before, it was sometime in the 1800s when TULIP was first used to describe the “Five Points of Calvinism.” But before then, there was a statement that came out from a council of churchmen in the Netherlands, which articulated the doctrines in summary form. It is important to remember, however, the “Five Points” stated at this gathering were only in response to “five disagreements” that an outside group raised in dispute.

Synod of Dort: The Origins of TULIP

Jacobus Arminius was a Dutch theologian (1560-1609) who lived a generation after John Calvin. Arminius thought highly of Calvin, saying, “Next to the study of the Scriptures… I exhort my students to read Calvin’s Commentaries carefully and thoroughly… for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture.” However, Arminius disagreed with some of Calvin’s theology. Arminius believed that God elected to save some sinners because God knew these sinners would respond positively to the gospel in the future. Arminius also believed that sinners could restrain the renewing power of the Holy Spirit and that Christians could lose their salvation if they did not persevere.

Calvin and Arminius never met (Calvin died when Arminius was 4 years old), but Arminius’s followers (known as the “Remonstrance”) organized their opposition to some of Calvin’s doctrines about 50 years after Calvin died. It all came to a head at the Synod of Dort(1618-19).[2]

The Remonstrance were 42 ministers, influenced by Arminius’ writings against some of Calvin’s theology. They petitioned the state to ask for theological allowance since Semi-Pelagianism was already classified as a heresy 1,000 years earlier. At that time in history, most Reformers were magisterial (meaning they still operated inside of a church structure that was connected to the civil magistrate). Religious freedom as we know it in America today isn’t really a thing until very recently in human history.

The Five Articles of the Remonstrance are:

Conditional Predestination: God predestines some sinners for salvation, and this predestination is conditionally based on God’s foreknowledge about each person’s anticipated faith or unbelief.

Universal Atonement: Christ died for all humans, and God intended His sacrifice for all humans, but only those sinners who accept this atoning work will be saved.

Saving Faith or Serious Depravity: Sinful and Fallen humanity is unable to attain saving faith, unless he is regenerated and renewed by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Resistible Grace: The grace of God is effective, but it is resistible, so man must cooperate with God’s grace to bring about personal salvation.

Uncertainty of Perseverance: Although God’s grace is abundant, the sinner can lose that grace and become lost even after he has been saved.

The Synod of Dort ended with a judgment against Arminianism, which declared that Arminianism was a heresy alongside Semi-Pelagianism. With this judgment, the Synod produced several “canons” or statements about the doctrine of salvation, some of which became the origins of the “Five Points of Calvinism.” These five statements are commonly listed today in short form with the acrostic TULIP.

A Summary of TULIP

Regrettably, many who call themselves “Calvinists” today are merely intending to say that they affirm somewhere between 3 and 5 of the “Five Points of Calvinism.” Calvin is so much more than these isolated points. Calvin’s commentaries on various books of the Bible are a treasure to any Christian who desires to understand the depth of Scripture. Calvin’s life-long work, the “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” is a touchstone for almost every systematic theology book written in the last 450 years. I have personally found Calvin’s “Little Book on the Christian Life” to be one of the most praise-inspiring books I have ever read.

Now, don’t forget that Calvin was a sinful human just like everyone else. I am not saying that he was perfect, or that anyone should try to follow him above or even beside Christ. I am saying that Calvin was a hero of the Christian Faith, and we are fools to disregard or disparage someone like Calvin – especially if we haven’t even read much of what he actually said or wrote for himself.

Another regrettable reality, when it comes to “Calvinism” today, is that the acrostic “TULIP” provides us with some less-than-helpful phrases. The flower is easy to remember, but its theological precision is quite lacking.

Here are the Five Points of Calvinismor TULIP:

Total Depravity: Fallen humans, since Adam, are affected by sin in every aspect of who they are – their bodies, minds, and wills/desires; and they are incapable of naturally doing anything genuinely good (Rom. 3:10-18).

Unconditional Election: God elects some sinners unto salvation, whereby they become beneficiaries of God’s blessings, not because of any condition in them, but according to the riches of God’s gracious grace and the purposes of His divine will (Eph. 1:3-6).

Limited Atonement: Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the cross is priceless, sufficient to cover all sin and all sinners, but Christ’s work was intentionally for those who believe and not for anyone else (Jn. 10:14-16).

Irresistible Grace: God alone causes sinners to be born again (Monergism), through the proclamation of the gospel and powerful work of His Holy Spirit. All who are born again possess new hearts with which they respond in loving affection for God, trusting and repenting by His grace (Eph. 2:1-10).

Perseverance of the Saints: All sinners whom God has elected unto Himself, those for whom Christ has died, those God has made spiritually alive, will grow in personal holiness in this life and will persevere unto glory (Rom. 8:28-39).

Not every Christian will immediately agree with these five points of Calvinism, and many Calvinists have even found some disagreement with some of these points. The object of this essay is not to convince anyone to be a Calvinist, or even to thoroughly explain what Calvinism is. I have simply endeavored to give an introduction to the historical development of some of the central doctrines of Calvinism.

In the end, I hope that those who claim to be Calvinists will be more diligent in their study of Calvin and his theology. I hope those who hate Calvinism will be less antagonistic and more diligent in their investigation of the doctrines of grace. I hope those who didn’t know much about Calvinism or the debate among Evangelicals will gain at least some helpful perspective on the matter.

I’m always glad to hear from the reader. You can find me on Twitter or Facebook or email me at marc@fbcdiana.org.

[1]See a very helpful breakdown of Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Augustinianism here: https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/semi-pelagian.html

[2]See a great historical and theological explanation of the Synod of Dort here: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2018/06/the-synod-of-dort/

Theological Triage: A Call to Thoughtful Christianity

Theological Triage is a phrase coined by Dr. Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (see his original article HERE). The phrase joins two concepts: one, diagnosing a medical emergency, and the other, the field of theology. Theological Triage is the art of categorizing theological questions or topics in such a way so as to give priority to some doctrines over others.

In short, all doctrine is important because it is God’s truth articulated, but not all doctrine is equally important.

Some doctrines are essential to the Christian faith, some are essential to doing life together among a local church family, and some are not worth dividing over at all. Furthermore, some doctrines are worth dying for, but not all doctrines should kill or divide us.

I would like to offer 4 categories or “levels” for us to use in our Theological Triage, and my hope is that we will be able to discuss theology without either leaving our convictions or our friendships behind.

First-Level Doctrines

These doctrines divide Christians from non-Christians. Some First-Level doctrines are the authority of Scripture (Are the Scriptures the final court of arbitration when we have a difference of opinion?), the Triunity of God (Is God one or three or both?), the true divinity and true humanity of Christ (How do we understand Christ as the unique God-man?), the substitutionary atonement of Christ upon the cross (How did Christ substitute Himself under God’s penalty for sinners?), and the exclusivity of Christ as Savior (Is there any way for someone to be saved apart from personal trust in Jesus Christ?). Many of these First-Level doctrines are contained in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicaean Creed.

These First-Level doctrines build a fence for us around things like cooperative evangelistic efforts (Will we participate in an “evangelistic” event with this other group or church? Will we endorse/recommend a parachurch ministry? Will we be associated with a person, group, or activity?). These doctrines also include or exclude certain guest preachers (Will we welcome this or that guest preacher on a Sunday? Will this or that preacher be affirmed as an officiant of a wedding or funeral service in our church building?).

Again, these First-Level doctrines divide Christians from non-Christians… These are the doctrines for which Christians must be willing to die.

Second-Level Doctrines

These doctrines divide one local church from another. Some Second-Level doctrines include believer’s baptism (What does baptism mean and who should be baptized?), church membership (What does membership mean and how is membership to be practiced?), and the Lord’s Supper (What does the Lord’s Supper mean and who should participate?).

These Second-Level doctrines build a fence for us around things like our local church pastors (Whose pastoral leadership will you follow?), our local church membership (What church will you join? And, who will you welcome into your church membership?), and our church planting partnerships (Will we offer our local church support for a denomination, or association, or particular church planting effort?).

Again, these Second-Level doctrines divide one local church from another… These are the doctrines over which Christians may join or leave a church.

Third-Level Doctrines

These doctrines vary among Christians (especially in their application) without necessarily dividing Christians or local churches. Some Third-Level doctrines include the details of our eschatology (When will Jesus return? What is the millennium? Who is the anti-Christ?), the intermediate state of the soul (What exactly is existence like between death and final resurrection?), and eternal rewards and punishments (Will there be any difference in the degree to which Christians are rewarded in glory and the lost are punished in judgment?).

These Third-Level doctrines do not have to build any fences or divide any Christian brotherhood, but they may provide areas of fruitful discussion and sanctifying application for Christians in fellowship together. If Christian brothers and sisters are willing and able to discuss these Third-Level doctrines in a loving and patient manner, then these discussions may produce spiritual growth and provide a marvelous occasion for exercising biblical exegesis, faithful living, and humble wisdom.

Again, these doctrines vary among Christians… and I (for one) welcome the kind of spiritual growth and sharpening that careful theological dialogue produces among Christian brothers and sisters. I also pray that Christians will become better able to benefit from dialogues over Third-Level doctrines and the applications thereof.

Fourth-Level Doctrines

These things have no clear imperative from Scripture; they are matters of Christian conscience. These matters are sometimes called “adiaphora,” which literally means “indifferent things” or spiritually neutral things. These Fourth-Level doctrines are the wise, biblically principled grounds from which we make decisions about where to go to school, what job we should take, what party we should attend, what coffee we should drink, or how long we should let our hair grow.

These Fourth-Level doctrines must not build fences, otherwise, we will be attempting to bind the consciences of fellow Christians on matters in which God has left freedom. In fact, dogmatic Fourth-Level doctrines are the very definition of legalism. We ought to give one another grace and charity where God gives us liberty.

I am convinced that we must learn the sensible art of theological triage.

A Call to Thoughtful Christianity

For the sake of our personal spiritual development and for the sake of our church families, we must learn to distinguish those things (those doctrines) that are essential from the non-essential. We must distinguish those vitally important doctrines from the essential ones and the lesser important ones.

For the sake of the gospel, Christians must be able to know the basis of their distinct relationships with other Christians generally, with fellow church members specifically, and with their non-Christian neighbors in the world around them.

Furthermore, we should remember that intellectual and spiritual growth is a process, and where we are now is not where we may always be. By God’s grace, we shall all grow in time.

Justification: Not Only for Theologians

How are rebellious, disobedient humans able to avoid the wrath of the God they have so consistently defied throughout their lives? Now that is a good question! Throughout history, Christians have phrased the question like this: How is a sinner justified before God? Justification is a theological and biblical word, but it is also very practical and universal in its applications.

Justification is the doctrine upon which every Christian relies. It is the only way that sinners may live in the presence of the holy God; they must be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and free from the stain of sin. Quoting the Westminster Confession, Hodge relays the doctrine of justification as follows:

“The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him.”[1]

Justification is at the core of describing how God’s plan of redemption is effective for the salvation sinners. The word itself conjures up legal connotations, such as crime, law, judge, penalty and judicial declaration. There are numerous works, including the several used as resources in this article, which beautifully and profoundly extract the keenest observations from the biblical doctrine of Justification. The purpose of this work is to concisely communicate the wonderful work of Christ, both positive and negative, in justifying sinners by providing righteousness, expiation, and propitiation.

The Apostle Paul expressively speaks of the Gospel in Romans 3:21-26 when he says,

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This phrase is a commonly memorized verse for anyone who has attempted to learn the Romans Road in order to evangelize. The purpose of reciting this text is to point out the reality of universal guilt. Every human sins. The implication is that sin is not only a horizontal offense, but vertical too. Human sin is against self, others and the Creator who made and governs humanity. Those who sin are guilty before God and under the penalty of sin, namely death.

Elsewhere in the same portion of Scripture, the stark pronouncement is declared, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Death here refers, not only in the physical sense of human mortality, but also to the idea that God will distribute His ultimate judgment of wrath on all who have rebelled in sin against His righteousness. God has established the law, all humans have disobeyed it and the perfectly just Judge is obligated to deliver justice. This bleak situation is the common bond of all people. Sin yields death and judgment, everyone has sinned, and God’s righteousness demands that all sinners endure the due penalty.

In an essay on justification, the purpose of preliminarily establishing the sinner’s guilt and God’s immanent wrath is two-fold. First, the gospel is good news because of the converse situation in which the unregenerate person presently finds him or herself. Hodge explains that justification rests “on the principle that God is immutably just, i. e;, that his moral excellence, in the case of sin, demands punishment.”[2]

Secondly, the redeeming work of Christ is a wonder without comparison because of the overwhelming holiness and justice of God.  Sinners may not realize and some may even choose not to acknowledge that they are hanging over a perilous pit of destruction.  God’s holy justice and consuming wrath is pointed at them every moment and God holds it back each second for reasons only known to Him. Dr. Sproul notes, “The Greek word Paul uses for ‘wrath’ is orgai. [Ro 3:18] The English word that derives from orgai is orgy… God’s anger is one of passion with paroxysms of rage and fury.”[3]

God’s wrath toward sinners is no jovial or moderate thing. The gratitude felt by any sinner’s escape of such fury is beyond expression.

What reason would any sinner have for embracing a hopeful attitude, believing some escape may be found? The message of good news concerning the person and work of Christ appears all the more stunning in front of this abominable backdrop. We who believe (i.e. trust in Christ) are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation” (Ro 6:24-25a).  Jesus has given Himself as the sacrifice for sinners and suffered on behalf of all those who would trust in Him.

The suffering life and excruciating death of Jesus Christ would be note worthy if only for the sake of uniqueness, especially in light of His deity. However, the biblical description of purpose behind such a work is that of representation.  Jesus is the representative of sinners before the bar of God’s judgment.  He is the one who absorbs the full wrath of God, which all sinners deserve.

Jesus’ atoning sacrifice is the work of expiation and propitiation. Expiation, according to Sproul, carries the idea that Christ “removes our sin from us and takes it away.” So then one aspect of Christ’s atoning work is that He removes the sin of sinners; He makes sinners clean. Sproul describes expiation is a horizontal work, washing human sinners, and propitiation is a vertical work, “satisfying the justice of God for us.”[4] God’s justice demands that sinners endure the due penalty for sin, namely His unbridled wrath. God is no just judge if He merely pardons the sinner and withholds punishment. Justice must be delivered, because God is the one and only perfect Judge.

Therefore, the work of Christ includes enduring the wrath of God as a representative for sinners. Grudem explains that Christ’s passive obedience can be observed in several ways.[5] Jesus’ obedience was not passive in that He was inactive or unengaged during such a time, but passive in the sense that He was obedient to endure suffering that was inflicted upon Him. Christ’s suffering included the human suffering of mortal life, the physical pain of death by crucifixion, the psychological pain of bearing the sin of all those who would be recipients of His atoning work, the emotional pain of being abandoned by His friends, the unknown pain of mysterious abandonment by His Father, and finally the unimaginable pain of bearing the full wrath of God. Jesus was obedient in a life and death of suffering like no other human has ever or will ever endure.

This is one-half of the work, which Christ has accomplished, that elicits the expression that Paul makes of God, “He [is] just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Ro 3:26). This aspect of Jesus’ redeeming work on behalf of sinners may be considered the negative aspect. Negative, not because it is bad, quite the contrary; His work is incredibly good as He subtracts sin (expiation) from the sinner and places it on His own shoulders in order to bear the punishment thereof (propitiation).

The negative aspect of Christ’s work on behalf of sinners (the subtraction of sin from the sinner and the atonement of such before God) is astonishing even if unaccompanied, yet it alone does not fulfill the necessary conditions of God’s requirements imposed on corrupt humanity. One must be righteous in order to receive approval from the holy King of the universe and to enjoy restful communion with Him. Expiation and propitiation are tantamount to the taking away of the sinner’s debasement, but without a life of perfect obedience the sinner is still not righteous or worthy of the approval of the King.

As established above, in the passage cited, all humanity has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard of perfection. The completed work of Christ is both the subtraction of sinful debauchery and the filthy stain of its vestige, as well as the addition of the perfect righteousness achieved in the life of obedience that Jesus lived as the incarnate God-man. Dr. Sproul comments, “Jesus not only had to die for our sins, but also had to live for our righteousness. If Jesus had only died for our sins, His sacrifice would have removed all of our guilt, but that would have left us merely sinless in the sight of God, not righteous.”[6] Calvin explains, “from the moment when [Jesus] assumed the form of a servant, he began, in order to redeem us, to pay the price of deliverance.”[7] Jesus was not only the representative of sinners in His sacrificial death; He was also their delegate in His impeccable life.

The Apostle Paul, elsewhere in the book of Romans, explains that Christ was the second “Adam” (Rom 5). The first Adam, Paul says, disobeyed as the representative of humanity and God’s declaration of guilt on the entire human race was the result. However, Christ is the second Adam who lives an obedient life before God and as a result the “many” are “made righteous” in the sight of God. It only takes a light consideration of the contrast here to begin to marvel at the incredible distinction between the two “Adams.” The first Adam was directly created by God and placed in a marvelous garden, which he was to enjoy along with his naked wife (Gen 1, 2). The ground and plant life thereon produced vegetation for food effortlessly. For some amount of time, there was absolutely no sin and Adam had immanent communion with God. On top of all this, there was only one rule to follow and even that was a negative rule rather than a positive one, Do not rather than You must Do. Avoiding this one error meant blessed, sinless communion with God in perfect contentment forever.

However, Jesus, the second Adam, had much different circumstances.  In fact, the pinnacle of Christ’s obedient life was His time of fasting in the desert (Matt 4). Jesus had been fasting for forty days and was now in solitude in the desert when He experienced His temptation from the devil. This was no lush garden and He had no full belly. Jesus was seemingly all alone. Incredibly, His response was obedience rather than rebellion, even in obviously desolate conditions. The second Adam was a human representative, like the first, but His representation was one of perfect righteousness. Sinners, then, may rely on Jesus’ righteous obedience, as they understand their own lack thereof.

Salvation is wholly a work of the Lord. God supplies all we need and satisfies all of His demands in the person and work of Jesus Christ. God declares sinners righteous and provides the means by which He may declare them so. During the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther’s day, the defining call was the phrase “Justification by faith alone,” sola fide.

Sproul says this phrase is “merely shorthand for ‘justification by the righteousness of Christ alone.’ His merit, and only his merit, is sufficient to satisfy the demands of God’s justice. It is precisely this merit that is given to us by faith. Christ is our righteousness. God clothes his filthy creatures with the coat of Christ’s righteousness.”[8]

This imagery of clothing is helpful for a more accurate understanding of the concept.  The sullied sinner who receives the blessed joy of eternal reward in the presence of God almighty does so, not based upon his or her renewed fervor to live well, but because he or she has been covered by the foreign righteousness of Another. Christ’s righteousness is alien to the sinner, but imputed (assigned or accredited) to him or her by God because of the work of Christ.

Every sinner who has been regenerated (born again, John 3:3) by the Holy Spirit rests all his or her confidence in escaping God’s judgment on the completed work of Christ. Unlike most other religions and philosophies, Christianity is a worldview based on the inability of humanity to fix anything and a total reliance on God to reconcile whom He will to Himself. God demonstrates His own graciousness in granting sinners the gift of redemption, which can only be found in Christ Jesus. It is not hard to notice the legal notions in J. I. Packer’s comments on the matter when he says,

“Whenever God fulfills his covenant commitment by acting to save his people, it is a gesture of ‘righteousness,’ that is, justice. When God justifies sinners through faith in Christ, he does so on the basis of justice done, that is, the punishment of our sins in the person of Christ our substitute; thus the form taken by his justifying mercy shows him to be utterly and totally just (Rom. 3:25-26), and our justification itself is shown to be judicially justified.”[9]

In summary, the whole of humanity is guilty before a righteous Judge. This Judge is like no other. He is omniscient and omnipotent. Added to these ominous capabilities is His attribute of aseity; that is, He is self-existent and will never cease to be. This dreadful combination to sinners means certain and unending punishment for their rebellion. There is no way of escape in them and no hope that the Judge will simply forget or become careless concerning their malfeasance. Holiness and righteousness is the requirement, but sinners are covered in the stinking filth of the opposite. In this miry and hopeless state, God does something most unexpected; He pronounces His declaration of righteousness upon sinners who are not. He does so without the slightest impugning of His own righteousness and this seems all the more conflicting. One may wonder, How can this be?

Indeed, it is a wonder. God declares the sinner righteous in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. This is possible only because Christ is the provision of God for expiation, propitiation, and righteousness. The Apostle Paul describes God as the “Just” and the “Justifier.” God commands humans, “Be holy as I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). Only because of the completed negative and positive work of Christ’s obedience can God and the sinner be thus.

[1] Hodge, C. (1997). Vol. 2: Systematic theology : 481–482. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Sproul, R. C. Romans. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009: 38.

[4] Ibid: 103.

[5] Grudem, Wayne A., and Jeff Purswell. Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999: 251.

[6] Sproul, R. C. The Work of Christ: What the Events of Jesus’ Life Mean for You. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2012: 71.

[7] Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997.

[8] Sproul, R. C. What Is Reformed Theology?. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005: 67.

[9] Packer, J. I. (1993). Concise theology: A guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

Has God Really Spoken?

It would not be an overstatement to say that God’s revealed word has been a source of controversy from nearly the beginning of time. The serpent of old asked Eve, “Did God actually say…” (Gen. 3:1), and that question has been an incessant refrain ever since.

One of the central topics of the conversation, especially during the last 150 years, is inspiration. What do we mean when we say that God inspired the Bible? How has God inspired the texts we understand to have been written by various authors over the course of about 1,500 years? There are many more questions that arise in this kind of conversation, but it is helpful to begin by asking, “Is the Bible the Word of God?”

Of course even this question will require some explanation, but here is a constructive starting point. Basil Manly has written a fantastic work on exactly this topic (The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration), and I found it to be extremely beneficial and compelling. Surprisingly, it was also food for my soul.

Manly sets the stage by helpfully arranging the stuff of Christianity. He writes,

“Christianity is the Religion of the Book. It is not an external organization, nor a system of ceremonies, nor a philosophy, nor a vague inquiry and aspiration, nor a human invention for man’s own convenience or advantage. It is a definite system divinely given, consisting primarily of Facts, occurring both on earth and in heaven; Doctrines in connection with those facts; Commands growing out of both these; and Promises based upon them.”[1]

The ideas that Manly presents here are beneficial for any context, but it seems especially so in the context of contemporary American culture. Christianity is about propositional truths concerning real historical events, from which we derive indicatives and imperatives regarding the most important issues of human existence. This should keep Christians from attempting to minimize the Christian Faith to something of lesser substance or a merely subjective experience.

There may be greater or lesser doctrines, and there are definitely experiences accompanying the Christian life, but the Bible is essential and foundational, and it is highly interested in informing its reader that God has spoken. Because Christianity is so dependent upon the Bible, the nature of this particular book is of greatest importance.

If the Bible is simply one good book among many, then it may still be of significant value. While it may come as a surprise to some, there could still be a Gospel for sinners – we may still know of the person and work of Jesus Christ – even if God did not inspire the Bible. However, there are some serious problems that would arise if one were to demonstrate that the Bible is not the word of God or inspired by God. Explaining the deficiencies of an uninspired Bible, Manly says, “It would furnish no infallible standard of truth.” Truth may still be known with an uninspired Bible, but we would have no objective standard or rule as our guide.
He goes on to say, “it would present no authoritative rule for obedience, and no ground for confident and everlasting hope.” One may still have hope, and one may still find the ‘tips’ or ‘principles’ in the Bible helpful, but there would be a lesser confidence in any promises it contained and it would have no solemn authority that any sinner should obey. Lastly, he says, “it would offer no suitable means for testing and cultivating the docile spirit, for drawing man’s soul trustfully and lovingly upward to its Heavenly Father.”[2] Manly touches on the nature of Scripture well here when he conveys the reality that it is precisely because the Bible is the word of God that it cultivates submission in the heart of a sinner and draws him near with love and trust.

Manly’s defense of Verbal Plenary Inspiration is excellent throughout this text. He articulates the doctrine well, and affirms both divine and human authorship. Both authors are vital to this doctrine. Manly writes,

“The Word is not of man, as to its source; nor depending on man, as to its authority. It is by and through man as its medium; yet not simply as the channel along which it runs, like water through a lifeless pipe, but through and by man as the agent voluntarily active and intelligent in its communication.”[3]

As with other doctrines, such as providence and the hypostatic union of Christ, there is a paradox here that requires adherents to maintain a tension without a contradiction. Manly argues for a view of inspiration that neither obliterates the human participants nor lessens the divine authority. God is the decisive source and author of the Scriptures, and intentional contributors wrote the Scriptures according to their own education, experiences, and understanding. Indeed, both of these truths are simultaneously affirmed from the Scriptures themselves. This is neither a contradiction, for it is in distinct senses that God is author and men are authors, nor is this a denial of any essential participant, for these are the words of men and the words of God. One is not required to leave his rationality behind when he affirms this doctrine, but he is required to believe something that is ultimately a mystery to him.

Verbal Plenary Inspiration has been the assertion of Christians for millennia, though not necessarily under this title, but a recent question has caused the conversation to take a speculative turn. After hearing this doctrine articulated and defended, one may still ask the question, “But how has God done this?” This question gets to the heart of many liberal and speculative arguments against Verbal Plenary Inspiration, and it may be the source of intellectual frustration for some sincere Christians. But Manly reminds us well of what we must know and remember when he says, “If we undertake to go beyond, and to explain how this was accomplished, we leave what has been made known to us for the barren and uncertain fields of conjecture.”[4] God does not tell us how He inspired the biblical writers; He simply told us that He did.

Manly’s text masterfully and passionately defends the doctrine of inspiration. God has spoken, and He has made Himself known through human agency. The Christian need only believe what God has said, just as he should believe that God has said it. This is the only way that a sinner may enjoy a right relationship with God. Humans have had difficulty trusting God at His word since the question was first asked, “Did God actually say…” (Gen. 3:1).
May God help us to answer with confidence, “Yes… As a matter of fact, He did.”

[1] Manly, Basil (2013-10-04). The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration (Kindle Locations 6-9). Titus Books. Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid. (Kindle Location 27)

[3] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 124-126)

[4] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 138-139)