Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 3
December 6, 1951
NUMBER 31, PAGE 12

Baptist Absurdities

H. F. Sharp, Blytheville, Arkansas

Following is the position Baptists will sometimes take on the impossibility of apostasy.

When in debate the following questions were submitted to Mr. Jim Balch, state missionary for the "Bogard Baptists" in Arkansas.

1. Can a child of God sin?

2. Can a child of God get drunk and commit murder?

3. Can a child of God die while drunk and in the act of murder?

4. If so, will he go to heaven or hell?

5. Does the outer man sin or does the inner man?

6. Which does God chastise; the outer or inner man?

Under question No. 1 the answer was a child of God cannot sin. Further, the Baptist preacher said a child of God could not get drunk and commit murder. To this the following argument was made: The way then to be sure where you stand is to get a quart of liquor and drink it all. If one gets drunk then he is not a child of God but if he does not get drunk on a quart of whiskey then he is a child of God. If the answer had been one could get drunk who is a child of God then one would be forced to the conclusion a man, who is a child of God, could get drunk and go to heaven which would contradict Galatians 5:19-21. Or, here is the other conclusion. If one can get drunk and commit murder but cannot die that way we would have eternal life here. Then we could get drunk and stay that way and since one cannot die who is a child of God and drunken, he would have eternal life right on the earth!

To question No. 5 Mr. Balch said the outer man sins. He agreed with Mr. Bogard in the Hardeman-Bogard debate that as "far as my soul is concerned I am as perfect as God himself." If that is true then, according to Baptist doctrine, the outer man is a child of hell till the resurrection. God chasten the child of hell which will do no good. God does not chasten the inner man for he is perfect, according to Baptists. If God did chasten the inner man, he would be paddling the wrong person. If the inner man does not sin and God does not chastise the inner man then (according to Hebrews 12:8 "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."), every Baptist soul is bastard. According to the Baptist answer alone, all one has in the Baptist Church is a child of hell body and a bastard soul. Will Baptists accept this? This is the conclusion to which they are driven.