Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
NEED_DATE
NUMBER 2, PAGE 14

What's Wrong With The Baptist Church -- No. 2

Wm. E. Wallace, Owensboro, Kentucky

Baptists have defeated the principle of peculiarity in the eyes of many people by teaching that once a man is saved he cannot be lost. This is my next objection to the Baptist Church. A Christian is to be peculiar, unspotted from the world. His morals must be high, his character should be blameless. Christians must strive for the high ideal of perfection. There are incentives set forth in the New Testament which lead the Christian on toward perfection. He must add to his faith, virtue, knowledge, self control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love (II Peter 1:5:7). If he does these things, said Peter, he shall not fall. On one hand the Christian has a hope of heaven, if he strives lawfully (I Timothy 2:4). On the other hand there is the warning of falling from grace and the consequence — eternal damnation. Peter said "the last state is worse with them than the first" relative to those who turn back (II Peter 2:21). But Baptist doctrine teaches that once a man is saved he stays saved, he cannot be lost. He cannot sin so as to be eternally lost. Recently I listened to a series of radio programs in which a Baptist preacher asserted that most of the corruption, wars, immorality, and debauchery in Christendom today are results of the doctrine of "baptismal regeneration." He asserted that when people are taught that their sins are washed away in baptism, especially in infant baptism, that they naturally become corrupt because they go through life thinking they are all right. The preponderance of sin in areas where infant baptism prevails, said he, is the result of the idea of baptismal regeneration. Well, I should mention here that the Bible does not teach baptismal regeneration. It teaches regeneration through obedient faith which of course includes baptism. But the pastor overlooked the fact that his doctrine of "once in grace always in grace" is by far a greater incentive to sin than that of baptismal regeneration in infancy. For if a man thinks he is saved, and cannot be lost, then he is more apt to indulge in vice and corruption than the man who was taught his original sin was washed away in baptism. You can see that Catholics teach that original sin was washed away in sin, but they teach that one must confess to the priest, purchase indulgences and such like for the welfare of one's soul. But the consequence of Baptist doctrine is perpetual laxity in morals. I realize of course that Baptists fight all phases of immorality — fornication, dancing, liquor, gambling, et cetera. Nevertheless a good Baptist who engages in any of those vices will not be lost, according to their doctrine. That is what is wrong with the Baptist Church.

The next thing I list as "What's Wrong With The Baptist Church" is their attitude toward obedience to God. They teach that the only obedience necessary is that of faith. They reason that if a man is saved in his obedience then he would have to obey all commands, not just Baptism, and that if a man fails to obey every single command, then he would be lost — that is, if it is necessary to obey God in order to be saved. Thus they minimize God's commands. They make God's commands mere optional suggestions for man in this life. Paul said we must work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12), and Peter said we purify our souls in obedience (I Peter 1:21).

James taught that our faith is dead without works and the second chapter of James rises to haunt Baptist preachers every time they speak on salvation by faith only. They will argue of course that salvation is by grace and not of works and we agree. Salvation is not earned or merited by the works of man, but salvation is not granted or given until man has satisfactorily submitted to the commands, the works of God. We will be judged according to our works (Romans 2:6; I Cor. 3:13). Baptists cannot see how that a man can be saved by grace if he must work out his salvation. They believe obedience nulls grace. But if and when they ascertain how it is that man is saved by faith and repentance in obedience to God then they ought to see how that man is saved by faith, repentance and baptism in obedience to God. They have never learned that faith that saves, is faith that obeys, or that saving faith is obedient faith. What James said about faith apart from works being dead has never registered on Baptist preachers, and they will talk loud and long about faith including repentance, or repentance including faith, but will deny that faith includes any other kind of obedience.

There are countless other objections to be listed against the Baptist system of religion. I have listed four: Baptists make a mockery of baptism in their doctrine concerning it, they cast reflection on the Lord's church in their doctrine denying its essentiality, they defeat the principle of Christian peculiarity in their doctrine once in grace always in grace, and they have minimized the importance of obedience, making God's commands mere optional suggestions.

The Baptist system is a Protestant system of theology developed from confusion of the reformatory reactions of the 16th and 17th centuries. Baptist theology is based on heresy handed down through the centuries, some of which comes directly from the Roman Catholic Church itself. It cannot be the New Testament church because it is different in name, organization, doctrine, foundation, origin and worship than that institution we read about in God's New Testament.

When Baptist people learn and realize that we are not trying to exalt ourselves over them as individuals, when they learn that we are not trying to get them to join "our church", when they do see that we are merely contending for the faith once delivered, they will come out of that religious denomination like a host of others have done down through the years.

We must emphasize that the church of Christ is not "our denomination," we must point out it is not a denomination at all. We must show by our action and our teaching and our lives that this system of religion we uphold and advocate is the faith once delivered, and that our hope is in Christ and his body, not in man and his denominations. In this we are not bigots, we are Christian soldiers. (From a sermon preached at Owensboro, Kentucky.)