"For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." (Romans 6:10)
Here is another situation that concerns me: churches receiving members from other churches. It is the policy of some brethren when questioning a prospective member from a Southern Baptist church to only go so far as to ask: what church baptized you? It is common knowledge that many (if not a majority) of SB churches practice open communion and it is a growing practice of these churches to receive a person's baptism as long as they are immersed and satisfied, no matter what denomination baptized them. Other brethren will say "When in doubt, I rebaptize." Even others will say that when a church starts practicing open communion, they have ceased to be a true church and have lost their authority to baptize. Others will say that because scriptural baptism by John the Baptist was the foundation of the church that Jesus established, that alien immersion is the dividing line. My opinion falls at where a church begins to fellowship false churches in union meetings, or open communion, or alien immersion. There is no Biblical consensus on this issue, even in the ABA. Here's the problem: baptism is a type of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need to know how far is too far because it is serious business to break a type. Just ask Moses. It kept him from being allowed by God to pass into the Promised Land. I'm not saying that we don't need a line, but we must have a clearer line. 2 Timothy 3:16,17: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." Would God through Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:2 by implication command us to "keep the ordinances" and not give us the instructions in His word to carry out His commands?
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Splitting hairs is difficult. Let us suppose they were baptized in 1950 in an ABA church that is now an SBC church. What if as an ABA church, they fellowshiped with SBC churches? Do you really think you can obtain all this information of every person wishing to join?
ReplyDeleteAnd what if they have a letter sent to you from an ABA church, who received the letter from another ABA church, who received the letter from another ABA church, who received the letter from an SBC church. How do you track all this?
And what about members at Shiloh MBC, whose records were all burned up in a house that had the only records. How do you know they didn't use to fellowship with false religion?
In order to accomplish such a feat, you are going to have to stop preaching the gospel, and go into a "background check" type job. You are going to need contacts at the CIA, FBI, and other agencies. You will need to start calling every person who attended those churches to get a full survey of whether the church actually did, or did not, fellowship with other denominations at the time of the person's baptism. You also may have to contact every person who knew those people, to see if they are consistent liars or not.
I would not call questioning whether baptism is scriptural or not splitting hairs.
ReplyDeleteLoL. I meant to imply that deciding whether or not a baptism is scriptural can be brought to an INCREDIBLY small thin line that is impossible to see. Notice the rest of my post. To determine whether a church meets all Brother Young Landmarker's qualifications or not would take hair-splitting examination. Why would one want to go through all this effort to try to see if the person's previous church came from a long line of true churches, and then simply accept by faith the person's profession of faith?
ReplyDeleteWhy drill their previous church with a million questions, just to have to trace it back to their sending church, and back before then, and back before then, etc etc etc?
This is hair splitting if I understand the definition of the phrase.
Let's honest, do you try to trace the origin of a church who baptized a candidate for membership? Do you trace down the origin of that church all the way back to Jesus? If not, then you can't possibly know if they somewhere lost their authority to baptize according to Brother Young Landmarker's suppositions.
ReplyDeleteBro. James,
ReplyDeleteThis is becoming a very serious problem. I could have said that you should just make a blanket rule to rebaptize all Southern Baptists (some churches have), but I did not. I would take members from one that is sound on fundamentals. You had better start checking even ABA churches. It would help if pastors would even go one deep in their investigation. I had a certain ABA brother who told me in a direct conversation that he would receive a member from a SB church that received alien immersion because, since it is a Baptist church, you cannot make a decision that that church has lost its authority. He said that he considers such church an unscriptural church but would stop short of calling it an untrue church.
I must say I haven't had anyone give me a Bible verse that shows exactly when the candlestick is removed. How long does a church need to dabble in false teachings or practices before it ceases to be a church? And just which doctrines need to be compromised before a church ceases to be a true one? Do you have Bible verses that prove one way or the other?
ReplyDeleteI'm not disagreeing, just making the statement that nobody has shown me Bible to prove an argument one way or another on this issue.
I agree with the brother who made the point that the building blocks of the first church were those believers who have been baptized by proper authority. Peter made indirect reference to this in Acts 1:21,22 when he stated the qualifications for the apostle who was to be chosen to replace Judas Iscariot: "Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, BEGINNING FROM THE BAPTISM OF JOHN, unto the same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Also, when a church receives one "baptized" by, i.e. a Church of Christ, that church has departed from the truth on salvation as they are bidding Godspeed to the COC teaching that one must be baptized to be saved. But must a church go so far as to accept alien immersion?
ReplyDeletePaul wrote to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11:2: "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
Back in the O.T., God expressly declared through the prophet Hosea that he put away Israel because of spiritual adultery, or mingling with false religion: "Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be bye children of whoredoms. For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink." (Hosea 2:1-5)
If you are going to accept one who comes who was baptized by a church with Baptist on the sign, and make no further determination whatsoever, then you must be prepared to accept all kinds of heresies. Baptists in the North are largely modernist, or do not accept the fundamentals of Christianity. One ABC church in New York City is aligned both in the ABC, USA and the United Churches of Christ. I'm in no way saying you would do all this, but just trying to get you to think about your position (which is also the position of others even in the ABA).
How far do you trace this. A church who accepts only "ABA baptist" baptisms is OK? What if they accept baptisms from another church who accepts only the same. And so on and so forth for 10 churches. But then, one of those churches accepts BMA baptisms. And that church they accept from accepts SBC baptisms. How do you trace every church from which a church has received baptism?
ReplyDeleteBro. James,
ReplyDeleteI am not anti-non-ABA. I am for any Baptist church that is true in doctrine and practice, i.e., salvation and the New Testament church. There are churches like us in independent Baptist work, BMA, SBC, etc. However, even the Handbook of Denominations will tell you that our beliefs are held primarily by churches in ABA and BMA.
As far as the main issue of the post, it is a landmark that needs to be reset. Our churches need to start investigating the churches that they take members from. Again, if they would do it one-deep, it would make a lot of difference. Some (ABA) are willing to take members by letter from alien immersion-receiving Baptists. That we know very well and I'll just leave it at that.
So your argument then is simply that it would be "better" if we investigate "one church deep" baptisms, correct? If so, I agree. This would be better. It is when we go into deeming churches non-true churches that we walk a slippery slope, b/c to be truly thorough, we would have to research not one-church-deep, but every-church-deep. While this may not be a waste of resources, it would certainly be very difficult.
ReplyDelete