Section I Scripture and Theology
Session 1: The Elders and the Church
1. One–minute Paper
2.5. Baptist Marks of the Church
The Problem: All three protestant churches—Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican—
preserved the relationship between the church and state, called “Magisterial Protestant Churches.”
2.5.1. Regenerate Church Membership (Church consists only of professing believers)
New Covenant Promise: Jeremiah 31:33–34 says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
In 2 Corinthians 6:16, the Apostle Paul explicitly connects God’s old covenant promise to make for himself a people with the new covenant fulfillment in the church. Paul writes, “For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’” (2 Cor 6:16) Additionally, the Apostle Peter reminds the scattered churches that they are the people of God: “But you are . . . a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Pet 2:9–10).
The most revolutionary idea – indeed, the key contribution Baptists have made to ecclesiology: “Given that the New Testament restricts baptism to believers, Baptists have concluded that church membership is restricted to
4Ibid., 579.
individuals who have made a credible profession of faith. The profession of faith should include submitting to believer's baptism and making oneself accountable to a particular local congregation with whom the professing believer regularly communes. These conclusions led both European Anabaptists in the early sixteenth century and various English separatists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to separate
themselves from the established churches. They instead espoused a
"gathered" congregation, which was a revolutionary idea. Not everyone born in a certain geographic area, they said, should be baptized and confirmed in church membership. Rather, congregations should be composed of the faithful who gather together voluntarily upon their own profession of faith, desiring to unite with others in the same area and form a Christian congregation.”5
2.5.2. Believer’s Baptism (Baptism of regenerate persons precedes membership)
A second trait of the local church is that its members have been publically identified with Christ through baptism. Baptism is a public profession of God’s saving work in the life of the believer. Baptism is modeled by Jesus (Matt 3:16), commanded by Jesus (Matt 28:19), and given to all members in the church throughout the New Testament as the public initiation of the believer into the family of faith. In Romans 6:3–7 and Colossians 2:11–12, the Apostle Paul explains that baptism signifies union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Paul assumes that the Christians in the churches have been baptized. This meaning of baptism combined with the regenerate nature of the church demands that baptism only be administered to persons who have been born again. In Kingdom Through Covenant, Gentry and Wellum rightly argue that baptism, “which is the covenant sign of the new covenant church, is reserved for only those who have entered into these glorious realities by the sovereign work of God’s grace in their lives.”6
B. H. Carroll (one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention who ministered in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s): “All organized assemblies have prescribed terms or conditions of membership. In the Greek state ecclesia membership was limited to a well defined body of citizens. Not all residents of the territory could participate in the business of the ecclesia. So with the Old Testament ecclesia or national convocation of
5 Dever, The Church, 114.
6Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical–Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 74.
carnal Israel. One must have the required lineal descent and be
circumcised or become a proselyte and be circumcised. Correspondingly the conditions of membership in the church on earth are regeneration and baptism.7
2.5.3. Church Covenant
Jesus teaches that Christians’ love for one another will evidence to the world their relationship to him (John 13:14, 15, 34, 35). He later prayed that his followers would walk in close unity. This unity in the church would also demonstrate to the world the truth of the gospel (John 17:20–
23). Jesus also is concerned with the purity of the church. In Matthew 18:15–17, he instructs the church on how it is to confront and even remove a member who is unrepentant and thus defames his reputation. The faithful practice of discipline helps the church to reflect God’s glorious character.
In passages such as 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1, 13:2, and 1 Timothy 6:3–5, the Apostle Paul instructs the church to take corrective action so as to accurately display the character of God.
How is it that churches can walk in the love, unity, and purity that is instructed by Jesus?
Since the protestant reformation, many churches have regarded
community covenants as very important to accomplish this. The idea of the church covenant is derived from the very nature of the church as God’s covenant people. P. T. Forsyth explains that, “the same act which sets us in Christ sets us also in the society of Christ. . ..To be in Christ is in the same act to be in the church. . .. It puts us into a relation with all saints which we may neglect to our bane but which we cannot destroy.”8 Just as Jesus’ relationship with the church is covenantal, so does this covenantal relationship extend into the church’s horizontal relationships within its own community. As Gregg Allison states, “the church is covenantal, or gathered as members in (new) covenant relationship with God and in covenant relationship with each other.”9 Thus, Baptist churches have regularly identified a church covenant as an essential
7B. H. Carroll, Ecclesia – The Church: Lectures Given by Dr. B. H. Carroll, Kindle ed. (Amazon Digital Services, 2013).
8Quoted in Gregg Allison, Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church, Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2013), 124.
9Ibid., 123.
characteristic of the church. In Historical Theology, Gregg Allison
observes as far back as 1610 John Smyth’s emphasis on church covenants:
“besides regenerate church membership and believer’s baptism, a church covenant was a third element in Smyth’s ecclesiology: ‘The outward part of the true form of the true visible church is a vow, promise, oath, or covenant between God and the saints.’”10
Churches tolerating serious immorality among its members send mixed messages to the world. While affirming the member as a believer, the church tells the world and each other that this way of living is consistent with the Christian life and that those who live this way still may be saved (cf. 1 Cor 6:9–11). Yet church members living in covenant relationships with one another tell one another and the world that Jesus is able to transform Christians and bring victory over sin. Further, they affirm that God is holy and is very concerned about the lives of his people. While reminding church members of their commitment to one another and clearly stating the qualifications and responsibilities of membership, church covenants help churches show the world that there is a distinction between those who belong to Christ with those who do not.
“By the seventeenth century, church covenants continued in use not only among Independent congregations in England and America but also among Baptists who adopted their usage, especially Particular Baptists.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, church covenants, often accompanied by a statement of faith, acted as the most basic document of a Baptist congregation.”11
v If you grew up going to church, what is your recollection of your church’s use of its church covenant?
2.5.4. Congregational Government – no authoritative entity above the local church (Implication: each congregation has the responsibility of accepting new members and disciplining erring members). We will examine this more closely in a moment.
v What is the impact on congregational government if these Baptist marks of a church are not carefully pursued?
10Quoted in Allison, Historical Theology, 581.
11Dever, The Church, 115.
3. Three types of church government