Baptist Theology and Distinctive Doctrines — Unit 2: Regenerate Church Membership: The Church as a Believers' Fellowship

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 what "regenerate church membership" means and why Baptists hold it.

2. Describe the meaning of the word "church" in the New Testament, both local and universal.

3. Contrast a believers' church with a church that includes everyone born in a parish or nation.

4. State the objections to regenerate membership, including the parable of the weeds, and give the Baptist answer.

5. Describe practical ways a Baptist pastor can keep membership meaningful, including the care of children and of members who no longer attend.

Why This Doctrine Is Basic

If you ask a Baptist what makes a church a church, the first answer is not a building, a bishop or a denomination. It is people: men and women who have been born again, who have trusted Christ and have joined themselves together to follow Him. We call this principle regenerate church membership. "Regenerate" means "born again" (John 3:3). The church is made of people who have received new life from God.

This teaching is closely tied to the last unit. Because Scripture is our authority, we look at how the New Testament describes the church, and we find a fellowship of believers. It is also tied to the next unit, because the same principle explains why we baptize only those who believe. Baptists did not invent the idea of a believers' church in a day. Its history, from the early English Baptists to today, is told in Course 1. In this unit we ask what the Bible teaches and what a pastor should do about it.

What the New Testament Means by "Church"

The Greek word is ekklesia. In everyday Greek life it meant an assembly of citizens called together. Christians used it for the people whom God has called out of the world to belong to Him. The New Testament uses the word in two ways.

The local church. Most of the time the word means a particular group in a particular place. Paul writes "to the church of God which is at Corinth" (1 Corinthians 1:2), and John writes to seven churches in Asia (Revelation 1:4). These people met regularly, had officers, observed the ordinances, practiced discipline and supported ministry.

The universal church. Sometimes the word means all the redeemed of every age and place who belong to Christ. Christ "loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25), and He is "head of the body, the church" (Colossians 1:18). Baptists affirm both meanings. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 speaks of the local church and also of the church as including all the redeemed of all the ages.

Some Baptists, in the Landmark tradition (see Course 1), have taught that "church" in the New Testament means only the local church. Most Baptists do not go that far. They say that every true believer belongs to Christ's universal church, and that every believer should also belong to a local church. The local church is where the universal church becomes visible, so that Christians can worship, learn, give, serve, and be corrected together.

The Church Is Made of Believers

The New Testament pictures are all pictures of living, saved people. The church is the body of Christ, with every member joined to the Head (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). It is the temple of God, built of "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5). It is "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people" (1 Peter 2:9). It is the bride of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2). None of these images fits people who have never been born again.

The pattern in Acts is the same. At Pentecost, those who "gladly received his word" were baptized and "added to them" (Acts 2:41). The next verse describes what they did together: they continued in the apostles' teaching, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. The Lord added to the church "those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47). Membership followed conversion. Nobody joined by being born in Jerusalem or by belonging to a famous family.

Paul addresses the letters of the New Testament to believers in the same way. He calls the Corinthians "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (1 Corinthians 1:2), even though they had many faults. He wrote to believers, and when he wrote of failures he called for repentance. Paul expected that those who were not true believers would not remain permanently inside the fellowship (compare 1 John 2:19).

Credible Profession

A fair question arises at once. Only God sees the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). How can any church know who is born again?

Baptists answer that churches cannot see the heart, and do not try to. They receive people on a credible profession of faith, which means that the person says clearly that he or she has trusted Christ, gives some account of this faith, and lives in a way that agrees with it. Jesus said that we know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:16-20). The church makes this judgment in love and with humility. Some will be received who later prove false, as Judas and Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8:13-23) show. The church is not guilty of error when it acts with care. The Baptist claim is not that every member is regenerate, but that the church aims to receive only the regenerate, and tries to act on that aim.

In practice Baptist churches usually ask a candidate to give a personal testimony to the pastor, the deacons or the congregation. Many then have the person baptized, as in the New Testament pattern, before welcoming him into membership. Churches also use a membership covenant, a written promise to walk together in love, to attend, to give, to pray and to submit to loving correction. Covenants are not in the New Testament by name, but they express the "one another" duties found everywhere in the letters.

A Different Pattern: The Parish or State Church

For much of history, the main pattern in Europe was different. In a territorial or state church, every child born within the boundaries of a parish or nation was made a member by infant baptism. The church and the community were nearly the same people. This was the pattern of the Roman Catholic Church and, with changes, of the Lutheran, Anglican and Reformed state churches. Many Latin American nations were shaped by the same pattern, and some of you were born into it.

Defenders of this pattern make serious arguments. They say that God deals with families and communities, and that a church open to all can reach the lost and teach the young. They notice that Israel in the Old Testament was a national community, and that God's covenant included children. These are not foolish arguments, and the people who make them love Christ.

Baptists answer in three ways. First, Israel was a nation, but the church is not. In the New Covenant God writes His law on hearts and all will know Him, "from the least of them to the greatest of them" (Hebrews 8:10-11, compare Jeremiah 31:31-34). The membership of the new covenant people is marked by new birth, not natural birth. Second, in the New Testament people join the church after hearing and believing, as in Acts 2:41. Third, experience teaches a warning. When everyone is a member, many have a name and no life. A church that includes the whole population cannot easily call anyone to repent, because they have been told they are already inside. This is why the early Baptists suffered and, at times, died for the belief that the church must be a gathered company of believers. Their story is in Course 1, and Unit 6 of this course takes up religious liberty.

The Parable of the Weeds

The strongest biblical objection comes from Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43. In the parable, an enemy sows weeds among the wheat, and the owner says, "Let both grow together until the harvest." Many say that this proves the church must always be a mixed company, and that we should not try to separate believers from unbelievers.

Baptists answer from Jesus' own explanation. He says plainly, "the field is the world" (Matthew 13:38). The weeds are among the wheat in the world, not in the church. The parable teaches patience about the final judgment, which belongs to the Lord and His angels. It does not tell the church to receive unbelievers as members. In fact the same Jesus gave the church a process of discipline (Matthew 18:15-17), and Paul told the Corinthians to remove an unrepentant man from the fellowship (1 Corinthians 5:1-13). A church that never examined its membership could not do either.

There is a second objection: the Baptist view makes the church proud and harsh, as if we were claiming to be perfect. The answer is that we make no such claim. Regenerate church membership says that the church seeks to include only the saved. It does not say that the saved are sinless. Our churches are full of sinners saved by grace, and they ought to be places of patience and forgiveness. They are not places for people who have never come to Christ.

The Problem of Large Rolls

An honest teacher must admit a problem. Many Baptist churches in many countries have a membership list much longer than the number who attend. Some members moved away years ago. Some were baptized in a time of enthusiasm and never returned. Some were enrolled as children without understanding. Critics say that the Baptist principle has failed in practice. Baptists sometimes agree that they have failed to live up to what they teach.

The answer is not to drop the principle but to restore it. Here are steps a pastor can take, patiently and with the congregation:

1. Teach what membership means from the New Testament, before taking any action.

2. Keep an honest list, and make a loving, personal effort to contact each person on it.

3. Ask each new member to give a clear testimony and to sign the church covenant.

4. Do not hurry. A church that rushes to remove names will hurt people. A church that never reviews the list will deceive itself.

5. Follow Matthew 18 for members who fall into open sin, and aim at restoration. Course 3 deals with church discipline in detail.

Hebrews 10:24-25 urges believers not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. Membership is a commitment to a body of real people, not a name on paper.

Children and the Church

Baptist parents love their children and pray for them. They teach them the Scriptures from infancy, as Timothy was taught (2 Timothy 3:15). But Baptists do not make children members before they show signs of saving faith. A child who is brought up in the faith belongs in the church's teaching and love, and the church welcomes him into worship and instruction. When he gives a credible profession, he is baptized and received.

Wise pastors take care in this area. Young children often want to please their parents, and a quick baptism may later cause confusion. On the other hand, children can truly trust Christ, and the pastor should not delay out of fear. Baptists differ on the age at which to baptize, and the Bible gives no age. A good rule is to listen carefully, to talk with parents, and to ask whether the child understands sin, the cross and the need to trust Christ himself.

Pastoral Application

A Baptist pastor in a Latin American city is asked to receive a woman into membership. She was baptized as a baby in the Catholic church, attends sometimes, and says, "I have always believed in God." When asked about Christ, she says she is "a good person" and that she has nothing to repent of.

The pastor does not turn her away with a rule. He warmly welcomes her and asks if they may read the Gospel of John together. Over several weeks he explains the good news: that every person is a sinner, that Christ died for sinners, and that we are saved by grace through faith. He does not attack her family tradition. When she trusts Christ, he asks her to tell her story to the church, and he explains baptism by immersion as the next step of obedience (the subject of Unit 3). Only after that does the church receive her. The pastor does not treat her as an enemy, but he does not pretend that church attendance and a christening are the same as new birth.

Summary

Baptists hold that the church is made of people who have been born again, who have publicly confessed Christ and joined a local congregation. The New Testament word ekklesia refers to a local assembly and also to all the redeemed; Baptists affirm both and urge every believer to belong to a local church. Because only God sees the heart, churches receive people on credible profession and baptism, with a covenant of mutual care. State or parish churches, which include everyone born in an area, follow a different pattern, but Baptists answer that the new covenant is marked by new birth. The parable of the weeds speaks of the world, not the church, and does not forbid church discipline. Baptists admit that many churches have large inactive rolls, and respond by patient teaching, honest lists and loving restoration, not by abandoning the principle.

Further Reading

• James Leo Garrett Jr., Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study (2009).

• J. M. Pendleton, Church Manual (1867), a public-domain Baptist guide to church membership.

• E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion (1908), a public-domain classic.

• John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology (1857), a public-domain classic.

• The Second London Confession (1689) and the New Hampshire Confession (1833), both public domain.

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

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