Baptist History and Denominational Development — Unit 1: Who Are the Baptists? Identity and the "Baptist Distinctives"

Key Verse

"Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them." (Acts 2:41, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why a Baptist pastor should know the history of his own tradition.

2. Explain where the name "Baptist" comes from and what it means.

3. Name the ten Baptist distinctives used in this specialization and give a Scripture for each.

4. Describe what Baptists share with all evangelical Christians, and what makes them distinct.

5. State the main objections to Baptist identity and explain how Baptists answer them.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist students. It is theologically conservative. When it says "we," it means Baptists who hold that the Bible is the inspired, authoritative and trustworthy Word of God, and who confess the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as one God.

Other Christians, and many historians, see some of these matters differently. This course states their views fairly and then gives the Baptist answer. We do not mock those who disagree. Many of them are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). A faith that has been tested is stronger than one that has never been questioned.

This course also tells the truth about our failures. A tradition that fears honest history is weak. A tradition that tells the truth can give thanks where it should and repent where it must.

Why a Baptist Pastor Needs History

Your members will ask you questions. A new believer asks, "Why do you baptize only professing believers?" A neighbor says, "Baptists are a new religion that came from another country." A visitor asks, "Why does your church vote on everything?" You cannot answer well if you do not know where these practices came from.

History helps us in four ways.

First, it gives us roots. We learn that Baptist convictions were not invented for convenience. Men and women paid with prison, fines, exile and sometimes death to hold them.

Second, it protects us from pride. Our story contains courage, but it also contains quarrels and division. We are not better than other Christians. We are people who believe that the Lord asked His church to live in a certain way, and we want to obey.

Third, it protects us from carelessness. A church that forgets why it believes in believer's baptism, congregational government and religious liberty will slowly give them up.

Fourth, it helps churches that are young. In many countries, including Mexico and other lands of Latin America, as well as parts of Africa and Asia, Baptist churches were started within the last two centuries, often with the help of missionaries. Neighbors may say that being Baptist is a foreign faith. A pastor who knows the whole story can answer that Baptist convictions come from the New Testament, and that Baptists are now a worldwide family of many peoples.

Where the Name Comes From

The word "Baptist" comes from the Greek verb baptizo, which means to dip or immerse. John the Baptist was called by this name because he baptized in the Jordan (Matthew 3:1).

As the name of a group of churches, "Baptist" appeared in the early 1600s. Historians often note that it began partly as a label used by outsiders. The older word "Anabaptist" meant "rebaptizer." Opponents used it because these believers baptized again people who had been baptized as babies. Baptists answered that they were not rebaptizing anyone. They held that infant baptism is not true baptism in the first place, because the New Testament connects baptism with personal faith. So they were baptizing believers for the first time. Baptists baptize those of any age who credibly profess faith in Christ, including children, and they do not baptize infants who cannot yet profess faith.

The name reminds us that our story began with a question about baptism. But Baptists are not defined by baptism alone. It is one of several convictions that belong together.

What We Share with All Evangelicals

Before we speak of what is distinct, we must say what is common. Baptists are Christians first. We confess one God in three persons, the deity of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, His atoning death on the cross, His bodily resurrection and His future return. We teach that salvation is by grace through faith: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The British historian David Bebbington described evangelicals by four marks: love of the Bible, trust in the cross of Christ, the need for personal conversion, and active work for the gospel. Baptists fit this description well. Many Baptists have been leaders among evangelicals, especially in missions.

So the Baptist distinctives are not what make a person a Christian. They are convictions about how the Lord wants His church to be formed, governed and lived out. A Baptist can have true fellowship with a Methodist, a Presbyterian or a Pentecostal believer in the gospel, and still hold his own distinctives with conviction.

The Ten Baptist Distinctives

There is no single official list. Different Baptist writers phrase them differently. This specialization uses the following ten, which follow the historic Baptist confessions and the Baptist Faith and Message.

1. The authority of Scripture. Baptists hold that the Bible is the final authority for faith and practice. It is sufficient, and conservative Baptists also affirm that it is without error. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). Whatever we practice in church must be found in the Bible or follow from it.

2. Regenerate church membership. The church is made up of people who have been born again and have personally believed. They are not members only because of family, birth or the place where they live. Acts 2:41 shows this pattern: those who received the word were baptized and were added.

3. Believer's baptism by immersion. Baptism is for those who have believed in Christ, and it is done by immersion in water. It follows the command of Matthew 28:19, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." It pictures the believer's burial with Christ and rising to new life (Romans 6:3-4). Baptism does not save a person. It declares that he has been saved.

4. The Lord's Supper as an ordinance. Baptists observe two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, both given by Christ for His church (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Most Baptists hold the memorial view: the bread and the cup remind us of Christ's death and look ahead to His return. Some Baptists believe Christ is spiritually present in a special way. No Baptist teaches that the bread and cup become the physical body and blood of Christ.

5. Local church autonomy and congregational government. Each local church is under Christ as its Head and governs itself. Members meet together and decide important matters, as in the pattern of Matthew 18:17 and Acts 15. No bishop, council or convention rules over a Baptist church.

6. Two offices: pastor and deacon. The New Testament names two offices in the local church (Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3). The pastor is also called elder or overseer. The deacon serves the church in practical ministry. Most conservative Baptist bodies, including those that adopt the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, hold that the office of pastor is for men. Some Baptist bodies do ordain women. All Baptists affirm that women serve the church widely in teaching, missions, care for the needy and many other ministries.

7. The priesthood of all believers. Every believer has direct access to God through Christ. "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). This does not mean that each believer stands alone and needs no church. It means that no human priest stands between a person and God.

8. Soul liberty and religious liberty. Faith must be free. "So then each of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). No government and no church can force a person to believe, because forced faith is not faith. Baptists therefore asked for freedom of conscience, and they asked for it for all people, not only for themselves.

9. Separation of church and state. The church and the government have different tasks and should not control each other. Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). Baptists have taught that the state should not establish or run a church, and the church should not use the power of the sword. This does not mean hatred of government or that believers should be silent in public life.

10. Voluntary cooperation for missions. Local churches are free, but they are not alone. They join together by choice in associations and conventions to send missionaries, train pastors and help one another. Paul's churches shared an offering for the poor believers in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8 and 9). Cooperation is by consent, not command.

Confessions: "No Creed but the Bible"?

Baptists often say, "We have no creed but the Bible." Yet Baptists have written many confessions of faith. Examples are the Second London Confession (1689), the New Hampshire Confession (1833), and the Baptist Faith and Message (1925, revised in 1963 and 2000).

An objector says this is a contradiction. Baptists answer that there is a difference between a creed and a confession. A creed, in the sense Baptists feared, is a statement imposed by a church or government as a test that binds the conscience. A confession is a statement of what a group of churches believes, written by free churches and open to correction by Scripture. It helps teach new believers, guard against error, and show other Christians who we are. The Second London Confession itself begins with the Holy Scripture as the rule of faith. So the confessions serve the Bible and do not replace it.

Objections and Historians' Debates

Objection 1: Baptist distinctives divide Christians. Some say that making a rule about baptism or church government splits believers who agree on Christ. This is a sincere concern. Baptists answer that the distinctives are matters of obedience, not conditions of salvation. We do not say that Christians from other traditions are lost. But the Lord said to teach His people "to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). If we believe He commanded a pattern for His church, we cannot treat it as unimportant. We can hold our convictions firmly and still love and work with other believers.

Objection 2: What is the heart of being Baptist, freedom or doctrine? Historians disagree. Some, such as Walter Shurden, describe Baptist identity as a set of freedoms: freedom of the Bible, of the soul, of the church and of religion. Others stress that Baptists have always been a confessional people, defined by shared beliefs written in confessions. Some historians say the best description is "evangelical dissenters" who also hold these distinctives.

Our answer is that both parts are true and must be kept together. Baptist liberty has always meant freedom to obey Christ under His Word. It has never meant freedom from the Bible. Freedom without truth drifts, and truth without freedom becomes force. Later units will show what happened when Baptists forgot this, especially in the twentieth century (Unit 8).

Objection 3: Baptists are not one church. They disagree on salvation, so what does "Baptist" mean? This is true. Baptists have long been divided between General Baptists, who stressed that Christ died for all, and Particular Baptists, who stressed that He died for His elect. Today the discussion often appears as Traditional Baptists and Reformed Baptists. Free Will Baptists teach that a believer can fall away. Most conservative Baptists today, following the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, teach salvation by grace through faith, the free offer of the gospel to all, and the eternal security of the believer. This course presents these views fairly, and Course 2 studies them in detail. What holds Baptists together is the shared set of distinctives above, and they are enough to make a family.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Daniel serves a small Baptist church in a Latin American town. Marta, a new believer who grew up in another church, comes to him after a service. Her aunt told her, "Baptists are a foreign religion that is only a hundred years old." Marta wants to be baptized, but she is troubled.

Pastor Daniel does four things. First, he listens and asks what exactly her aunt said, because the real question may be about family or about belonging. Second, he opens the Bible with her. He shows her Acts 2:41 and Matthew 28:19, and explains that believer's baptism and a church of believers come from the New Testament and not from any country. Third, he is honest about history. He says Baptists have a story of about four hundred years, that they often suffered for their beliefs, and that they are now found in nearly every land. Fourth, he speaks kindly about her aunt and her family, and prays with Marta. He does not attack her relatives' church. He invites Marta to follow Christ in baptism when she is ready.

Summary

Baptists are evangelical Christians who share the great doctrines of the faith with other believers. The name "Baptist" comes from the Greek word for immerse and began partly as a label from outsiders. This specialization uses ten distinctives: the authority of Scripture, regenerate church membership, believer's baptism by immersion, the Lord's Supper as an ordinance, local church autonomy with congregational government, two offices, the priesthood of all believers, soul liberty and religious liberty, separation of church and state, and voluntary cooperation for missions. Baptists have written confessions that serve the Bible and do not replace it. Historians debate whether Baptist identity is mainly freedom or mainly doctrine. Baptists answer that freedom has always meant freedom under the Word of God. Baptists differ among themselves on salvation, but they hold the distinctives in common.

Further Reading

• H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (1987).

• Bill J. Leonard, Baptist Ways: A History (2003).

• David W. Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries (2010).

• Chute, Finn and Haykin, The Baptist Story (2015).

• The Second London Confession (1689) and the New Hampshire Confession (1833), primary sources.

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Southern Baptist Convention.

• E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion (1908), a classic Baptist statement of the distinctives.

• J. M. Pendleton, Church Manual (1867).

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