Baptism, Church Membership, and “Together for the Gospel”

Baptism and church membership go together. Baptism symbolizes that a person has been baptized into Christ Jesus, specifically, into his death (Gal 3:27; Rom 6:3). It is faith that unites us to Christ (Gal 3:26; Col 2:12). Baptism is a picture of this union with Christ, as it shows that what has happened to Jesus has happened to us because he is our substitute: we were buried with him in baptism and raised to live a new life (Rom 6:4). Someone who has not been united to Christ by faith cannot be truly baptized. You can put them under water, but without faith they’re just getting wet.

Baptism is not some magical process that ritualistically saves people who don’t have faith, and people can have true faith even if they never get baptized. But this does not change what baptism is. Baptism is a symbol of our union with Christ by faith that marks the initiation of a person into the body of Christ. People who are not part of the body of Christ by faith can get wet, but they cannot be baptized.

Again, Baptism symbolizes that we are united to Christ by faith: what has happened to him has happened to us. He died and was buried; we died and were buried in him. He was raised from the dead; we will be raised from the dead (Rom 6:1–9). If we got wet before we had faith, was our union with Christ pictured? Baptists do not believe it was. Baptists believe that Baptism is an initiatory rite that shows in picture form what is spiritually true: by faith, the baptized person is in Christ. Baptism is a public picture of union with Christ, and the baptized person is now part of the body of Christ, a member of the church.

To be a member of the church is to be a part of Christ’s body. It is true that not everyone who professes faith and gets baptized turns out to be a true believer (see 1 John 2:19). Church discipline functions to encourage true believers to be what they are, and it purges those who are not true believers from the membership roll. Without membership, we cannot practice church discipline, which the Bible clearly teaches.

Should we confuse membership by baptizing people who are clearly not united to Christ by faith (infants)? Baptists say no. We should not cultivate a situation where people who are not united to Christ by faith are regarded as members of Christ’s body.

If we have people who have not been baptized and do not believe they need to be baptized who want to join our church, should we muddy the waters of church discipline by accepting as members people who are not in submission to the church’s understanding of the Bible’s instructions regarding Baptism? Doesn’t this set a dangerous precedent for other points on which people might differ with the church’s understanding of biblical teaching?

We are not saying that non-Baptists are not Christians, but we are saying that because of our understanding of the Bible, because of the way that binds our consciences, and because of our love for them and desire that they align themselves with the Bible’s teaching, we cannot welcome them as members of a Baptist church. On the last day, we believe refusing them church membership will be seen as the most loving thing that we could do for them because we are thereby urging them to become fully obedient.

People who are part of the body of Christ by faith and who have not been baptized (e.g., regenerate paedobaptists) are failing to follow biblical instruction. We all fail to follow biblical instruction, but should failure to follow biblical instruction be brushed aside? Should we conclude that certain failures really don’t matter?

No one should think that refusing to follow biblical instructions on baptism is as offensive or hurtful as adultery (here I am responding to a comment on a previous post). The damage that different sins do, and the various consequences different sins have, point to their relative heinousness in God’s sight.

Ultimately, only God knows why some believers do not become convicted that they are responsible before God to be baptized as believers by immersion. We are not in a position to conclude that not being baptized by immersion as a believer is a sign of immaturity (again, responding to a comment on an earlier post).

What those of us who are convictional Baptists do know is that it is our responsibility to follow the Bible’s instructions and help others to do so. This is loving. This is pursuing unity.

As for uniting with non-Baptists at an event like Together for the Gospel, we can simply observe that Together for the Gospel is not a church. No one is going to get baptized at Together for the Gospel, there is no membership in Together for the Gospel, and I am confident that (as long as the current leadership is in place) we will never be invited to participate in communion at one of the conferences.

We can find much to admire and agree with in our non-Baptist brethren, but we are Baptists because we do not agree with them on ecclesiological issues. I close with a restatement of Mohler’s theological triage:

First order issues: things that make us Christian (Authority of Scripture, Trinity, Two Natures of Jesus, necessity of the new birth, justification by faith, substitionary atonement).

Second order issues: things that make us divide from other Christians (who gets baptized and how, what happens in the Lord’s supper)—disagreements over these issues do not result in the conclusion that those with whom we disagree are not Christian, but we do conclude that we cannot worship together in the same church.

Third order issues: theological disagreements over which Christians do not need to divide (when does the rapture happen? Is there going to be a millennium? Etc.).

Why Don’t Baptists Commune with Presbyterians?

In a recent comment a friend of mine raised the issue of whether the requirements for membership in the local church ought to be the same as the requirements for membership in the universal church. I take this to mean: we think that someone is saved if they make a profession of faith and show evidence of regeneration. Why are these not also the requirements for church membership? Why should one have to be baptized as a believer by immersion in order to become a member of a church?

Some other friends have sought further discussion as to why a Baptist would only welcome believers who have been baptized as believers by immersion to partake of communion. So here is my attempt to explain why Baptists don’t commune with Presbyterians—in other words, here is my attempt to explain why Baptists and Presbyterians form separate churches.

Baptists are convinced that when Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them . . .” (Matt 28:19), he meant for people who have become disciples—people who have been born again and voluntarily associated with other believers to obey everything he commanded (28:20)—to be baptized. Historically the Baptists separated from state churches, into which all persons born in the state were baptized as infants. No infant voluntarily associated with other believers. Today, I do not believe that infants are born regenerate or born disciples, so I don’t believe infants should be baptized. Infants are not united to Christ by faith, so infants should not be baptized (see Gal 3:26–29). I do believe that I should raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that I should tell them every day that they need to believe in Jesus, that I should help them memorize Bible verses, but only the Spirit can give them the new birth (John 3:3–8).

The words of Jesus are paralleled by the unbroken example of apostolic practice. Every time you see someone baptized in the New Testament, the person confesses faith in Jesus before they get baptized. Pointing to “household baptisms” does not provide evidence that there were infants in those households who got baptized. After the whole family gets baptized in Acts 16:33, the next verse, 16:34, says the whole household rejoiced having believed in God. Translations render verse 34 differently: the ESV and RSV make it sound like only the jailer believed, while the HCSB, KJV, NAS, NET, NIV, and NKJV all render the verse as though the whole household believed. Even if the ESV and RSV have it right (and I don’t think they do), the text does not explicitly say that there were infants in the household who were baptized. The household might not have included any infants.

The command of Jesus and the unbroken example of the apostles together indicate that those who believe should be baptized upon their profession of faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Since the infant who is sprinkled was not baptized upon profession of faith, the infant was not baptized as a believer. Since the infant was not immersed in water, which is what the word “baptize” means, the infant was not baptized. I know my paedobaptist friends won’t like this, but infant baptism is no baptism. Those “baptized” as infants have in fact not been baptized at all.

This means that any believer who has not been baptized upon profession of faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord is failing to obey the authoritative instruction of the Lord Christ and follow the apostolic pattern.

Many Baptist churches will welcome any believer who happens to be present when the church takes communion to partake. But if the occasional visit turns into regular attendance, and if this means that one who has not been baptized as a believer by immersion is regularly present when the church takes communion, the unbaptized should not be allowed to continue to take communion—because we love them. Baptists believe that church membership is important, and many Baptist statements of faith say that baptism is prerequisite to church membership and participation in the Lord’s supper (see the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, art. 7, for example). This means that Baptists are going to urge all regular attenders to become members, and before one can become a member, one must be baptized by immersion. If a regular attender refuses to become a member, stating that they have been baptized as an infant, because we love people and want them to obey Jesus, we will urge them to bring themselves into line with his words in Matthew 28:19.

If people refuse the loving instruction of the church and refuse to come into line with the words of Jesus and the unbroken example of the apostles, as much as we Baptists may love this person, we cannot allow them to become members of the church and take communion. They have refused to follow Christ and the apostles on this point, they have not submitted to the church’s love and instruction, and the church does not have the right to bypass the instructions of Jesus and the example of the apostles because of concern for people. We love people enough to tell them what we believe to be the truth.  

Church membership is important. We only allow people to become members of churches if they confess faith in Christ as Lord and give evidence of having been born again by repenting of all known sin. We Baptists believe that people who refuse to be baptized as believers by immersion are sinning by not being baptized in accordance with the Bible’s teaching. We are not saying they are not Christians—only God knows the heart. But we are saying that because we submit to the Bible, and because we love them and want what is best for them, we cannot allow them to become members of the church. We believe they are in disobedience on the point of baptism, and we are calling them to repent and be baptized.

I love non-Baptists. Some of my favorite theologians, past and present, are non-Baptists. I am thrilled to see the cooperation between Baptists and non-Baptists at things like “Together for the Gospel.” But I can’t join a Presbyterian church. My convictions on what the Bible says and means won’t let me. And people who have not been baptized as believers by immersion can’t join Baptist churches. This is why we have Presbyterian and Baptist Churches. We must pray and work for unity, but unity has to be unity in the truth. Unity must be found in obedience to the Scriptures.

What Is Regeneration?

I’ve posted before about how we’re catechizing our kids, mainly using The Baptist Catechism edited by John Piper. I’m not sure that we’ll learn all the questions, though. For instance, I’m not certain that the question, “May all men make use of Scripture,” with the answer that all men are not only permitted but required to make use of the Bible, is really relevant to our day. I think this reflects the needed emphasis in the reformation era that everyone can read the Bible—against the Roman Catholic opposition to lay people reading the Bible for themselves. So we’ll probably skip that question and go on to others that I do think are worth learning, devoting ourselves as well to learning Bible verses (and all of those are relevant!).

Some other good topics don’t show up in The Baptist Catechism. I have in mind the lack of a good definition of Regeneration in this particular catechism. There is, however, a good definition of Regeneration in Tom Nettles’ book, Teaching Truth, Training Hearts, and I am trying to drill this one into my son’s brain. I want him to be able to say it now, even though he can’t understand the concepts. Someday he’ll comprehend these things, and I pray he embraces them.

It goes like this:

Q: “What is Regeneration?”

A: “Regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit, by which the heart is renewed, so that it turns from the love of sin to the love of holiness, and from enmity and disobedience to the love and service of God” (Tom Nettles, Teaching Truth, Training Hearts, 24).

I would add some Scripture references to this, such as John 3:3–8; 6:63; Eph 2:1–5; Col 2:11–13; Tit 3:4–7; James 1:18; 1 Pet 1:3; 1:23.

In his new booket, Family Worship, Don Whitney quotes Matthew Henry, who said of family worship: “Here the reformation must begin.”

May the Lord regenerate our children, may he spur us to prayerfully catechize them, and may the reformation begin.

The Greatest Danger Facing the Church

Is probably not what most of us expect. We expect some sort of direct challenge from without, something like The Da Vinci Code. But I think the greatest danger that we face is from within, and I think it comes from well meaning pastors.

How could well meaning pastors pose the greatest threat to evangelical churches today?

Do they deny the truth?

No, the pastors who pose the greatest threat to the church today will all confess belief in the right things. They will say they believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, that Jesus saves, and even that Jesus is the only way of salvation.

So how can these guys who mean well and make the good confession pose such a threat to the church?

Many pastors are a threat to their churches because they show from what they say and do that they do not understand what Christianity is. They think Christianity is the best form of therapy. They think Christianity is about self-help. They think Christianity is about better marriages, better parent-child relations, better attitudes and performance at work, and on and on. You can see that this is what they think because this is what they preach. Fundamentally, they think that Christianity is about success here and now. Also, for them, when it comes to how we do church, what the Bible says does not matter. What works best is what we should do.

But Christianity is not primarily about any of that. Christianity is primarily about the Gospel: about how a holy God has created a good world, in which the humans he made to worship him and enjoy communion with him have rejected him as King and sought to set themselves up as god in his place. Christianity is about these humans deserving the almighty wrath of God, and instead of judging them God sends his Son Jesus to take the punishment rebels deserve. Christianity is about telling this true story in the words of the Bible so that by the power of the Holy Spirit people come to see the world and themselves correctly.

Christianity is about the Triune God and the two natures of Christ. Christianity holds that humans are hopeless sinners but God has sent the Savior. Christianity is about the Holy Spirit supernaturally causing people to be born again so that they love this story and find in it their hope and joy. Christianity is about trusting the Word of God with all our hearts and not leaning on our own understanding—or our own ideas about what works or what is relevant. Christianity is about longing for the return of Christ, who, when he comes, will set up his Kingdom, which means that this is not our home.

Pastors who present Christianity as therapy and self-help do not present Christianity. They are like the liberals that J. Gresham Machen denounced. Machen said that people who don’t believe the Bible should be honest and stop calling themselves Christians because they have in fact created a new religion that is not to be identified with Christianity.

Similarly, the promoters of the American religion of self-help and therapeutic pop-psychology ought to be honest: they don’t believe the Bible is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). If they believed that the Bible really does contain everything we need to be saved and to live lives that are pleasing to God, they would preach the Bible from their pulpits. Not only would they preach the Bible trusting that God has revealed what he thinks his people need, trusting that God knows better than they do what is relevant, they would organize their churches according to the dictates of the Bible rather than the dictates of the market analysis and what works in the corporate world.

So how do you avoid winding up with a pastor who will harm the church by turning Christianity into the American religion of self help therapy?

1. Look at the biblical qualifications for men in the ministry (1 Tim 3:1–7; Tit 1:5–9), and ask pastoral candidates direct questions about whether they meet these qualifications. Ask the man’s references whether he lives up to these statements. Do not assume that every candidate will meet these qualifications, and don’t assume that every candidate understands these qualifications. Ask him to explain the qualifications.

2. Since the feature that most distinguishes the qualifications for an elder (pastor) from the qualifications for a deacon is that the elder be “apt to teach” (1 Tim 3:2), pay close attention to his teaching. Seek to discern whether this man “holds firmly to the trustworthy word as taught,” whether he knows enough theology “to be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Tit 1:9, ESV).

3. Based on what you have heard of his preaching, ask yourself these questions:

a. Was the main point of the text he was preaching the main point of his sermon? (If he did not preach a text, happily remove his name from consideration).

b. Does God rest heavily upon this man? Is it evident that he fears God? Can you tell that he knows that “teachers will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1)? Does he “tremble at the Word of God” (Isa 66:2)? Is the Word of God like a burning in his bones that he cannot hold in (Jer 20:9)?

c. Does he think that his main task is the explanation of the Bible, which is useful and relevant (2 Tim 3:16), or does he think that he needs to organize the Bible according to his wisdom in order for it to be useful and relevant?

d. Is this man going to help us to understand and live on the great truths of Christianity?

e. Is this man a theologian, or is he a just a gifted speaker with a good heart?

f. Do I trust this man’s ability to interpret the Bible and tell me what it means?

4. Ask direct questions about what he understands pastoral ministry to be about:

a. Is pastoral ministry about “the ministry of the Word and prayer” (Acts 6:4), or is it about building a massive corporation that is successful by worldly standards?

b. Is pastoral ministry about the power of the Spirit of God through the Word of God, or is it about “persuasive speech” and slick presentations? (cf. 1 Cor 2:1–5).

c. Is the great commission (Matt 28:18–20) about notching decisions on our belts or about making disciples who have been taught all that Jesus commanded?

d. Are Jesus’ instructions about church discipline (Matt 18:15–18) to be taken seriously or is he not going to practice church discipline since it might be bad for business?

e. Is church membership mainly about a big number for us to report, or should church members really take the “one another’s” in the New Testament seriously?

f. Are the main tasks of pastoral ministry prayer, teaching, and shepherding souls, or is pastoral ministry more about growing the business and managing a conglomerate of campuses?

g. What are his plans for doing evangelism?

h. What are his plans for doing discipleship?

i. What are his plans for praying for the members of the church?

Paul told the elders (that is, the pastors) of the church in Ephesus that wolves would arise from within their ranks to destroy the flock (Acts 20:29–30). Jesus said that the false prophets would be like wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing (Matt 7:15). It might be hard to recognize these well meaning pastors as wolves, but Jesus said we would know them by their fruits (Matt 7:16–20).

Let me add that I am not necessarily saying that every pastor who does not preach the Bible and who arranges the church according to the business model rather than the biblical model is intentionally trying to destroy the flock. No doubt some of these guys are evil. They are in the ministry for their own advancement, they don’t like the Bible, and so they preach the religion they prefer and they pursue church according to their preferences. But not all are openly hostile to Christianity.

So what do we say about well meaning pastors who propagate an un-Christian, un-biblical, worldly kind of Christianity? I think the words that Jesus spoke about those who corrupted the Old Covenant are fitting: “Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matt 15:14, ESV).

Let us heed the words of Jesus about what a good shepherd does, “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Only Jesus can lay down his life for the sheep in the way he did at the cross. But his under-shepherds can lay down their lives for the sheep as they take up their crosses and follow in the footsteps Jesus, loving, teaching, discipling, evangelizing, praying, and protecting the sheep from the wolves. No servant is greater than his master (John 15:20).

Prayer of the Month

The Lord blessed me with a good idea the other day, and perhaps it will bless you as well. I decided to pick a New Testament prayer and try to pray through it every day of the month. This will probably lead to the memorization of the text, which never hurts, and I hope that it will deepen my prayers. Praying inspired prayers is a sure way to pray in accordance with God’s will! So here are the texts I picked for the next year:

July, Ephesians 3:14–21

August, Philippians 1:9–11

September, Colossians 1:9–12

October, 1 Thessalonians 3:11–13

November, 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12

December, 1 Timothy 1:12–17

January, Philemon 1:6

February, Jude 1:24–25

March, 2 Corinthians 13:7–9

April, Ephesians 6:14–20

May, 1 Thessalonians 5:23–25

June, Hebrews 13:18–21

Theology in the Local Church

I was extremely encouraged to read this news story, which tells of a 4,300 member church that “has 480 people who participate in weekly theological reading groups that study through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.”

Wow! May the Lord bless us all with so many people willing to engage in serious theological study!

Dallimore on Why He Wrote the Biography of Whitefield

“Yea, this book is written in the desire—perhaps in a measure of inner certainty—that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more bring into being His special instruments of revival, that He will again raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labour and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives” (Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival, vol. 1 Banner of Truth, 1970, 16).

O God please raise up such men. . .

Are Big Churches Bad?

I get the definite impression that many people who are careful about theology and earnest to obey the commands and examples of the Bible think that bigger churches are bad churches. Several observations are relevant here:

First and foremost, let’s remember that the Jerusalem Church had over 3,000 after the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41). The Lord was adding to their number daily (2:47), and they were all together (2:44). In Acts 4:4, the number of the men is about 5,000, and then Luke resorts to words like “multitudes” (5:14) and “increasing in number” (6:1) and “multiplied greatly . . . many . . .” (6:7). [Lest those of us in smaller settings become discouraged, let’s also recall that Paul seems to have had a pretty small crowd in Philippi (Acts 16:12–13) and in Athens “some men joined him and believed” (17:34)].

Second, let’s observe that the Apostles apparently remain with the Jerusalem church (Acts 8:1, everyone is scattered except the Apostles). Even though the Jerusalem church has Apostles, however, it also has “elders” (see Acts 11:30; 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; 21:18). These “elders” are apparently regarded by Luke as equivalent to “pastors” and “bishops” (see Acts 20:17, 28). The most natural reading of this evidence about the Jerusalem church is that there is one church, which does have a hierarchy—James seems to respected by all (Acts 15:13–21). But this hierarchy looks “organic” rather than “institutionalized” (in other words, James seems to be first among equals because of his wisdom and spiritual authority). I take it that the Apostles and elders shepherded the Jerusalem church through oversight, teaching, and correction, and I take it that they did a good job of it (see especially Acts 2:42–47).

Third, let’s remember that some of our heroes in the faith have pastored pretty big churches. In his excellent book, The Baptists, Tom Nettles notes that Benjamin Keach’s (1640–1704) church eventually had to move to a meeting place that would hold nearly a thousand people. And how many thousands were in Spurgeon’s church?

So we must not automatically conclude that big is bad. Worldly is bad. Unbiblical is bad. But big, if God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, disciple-making, and suffering for the cross is certainly blessed!