re: Easter - a small problem

Aren't you glad your Easter doesn't depend on a bunny rabbit but instead on a Risen Lord?

(Click the title if you don't see a picture.)

Netanyahu stands up to Obama

Palm Sunday

Dore and Chinese art of Palm Sunday

Biblical Examples of Repentance

For those of us hungry for God’s mighty hand to move among us, greater levels of humility, brokenness over our sin, and sincere repentance are absolutely necessary. God freely forgives confessed sin (Proverbs 28:13) because the sacrifice of Jesus provides an infinite capacity to forgive that is greater than any sin we can commit. An example of a truly penitent person is found in the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Our Father assures us of his forgiveness, and His love anticipates our return and even goes out to seek us (Luke 15:4, 20; 19:10).

David

David is one of the best examples of repentance in the Bible (2 Samuel 24:10; Psalm 32:5; 38:18; 51), and he was called a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). He set the standard for what God wants in a repentant heart (Psalm 69:5, 13, 16) and in our response to forgiveness (Psalm 32:1-7).

In Psalm 32:1-7, the forgiven David said (in paraphrase): “I am a blessed man. I confessed everything, and You forgave all my sins and covered them in Your mercy. You have given me a clean slate. You do not charge me with iniquity. You are holding nothing against me. It feels good to be free from the guilt and weight of sin. I was overwhelmed with sorrow before I received Your mercy. You are my hiding place. You preserve me from trouble and sing me songs of deliverance. Let me stop a moment and meditate on that.”

In Psalm 32:8-11, God responds to David that the broken fellowship with Him is restored. “I will instruct you and teach you the way. I will counsel and watch over you. Don’t be stubborn like a mule, because that gets you in trouble with the wicked. My unfailing covenantal love surrounds you. Rejoice and be glad in Me.”

Other Biblical examples of how to repent

• Israel –Numbers 21:7; 2 Chronicles 7:14; Ezra 10:12; Jeremiah 3:21; Hosea 6:1
• Josiah – 2 Kings 22:19
• Job – Job 42:5-6
• Ezra – Ezra 9:4, 6
• Nehemiah – Nehemiah 1:6-7
• Isaiah – Isaiah 6:5; 64:6-7
• Jeremiah – Jeremiah 14:7, 20
• Daniel – Daniel 9:5, 16
• Nineveh – Jonah 3:6, 8
• Tax collector – Luke 18:13
• Peter – Luke 5:8; 22:61-62
• Paul – Acts 26:18, 20
• The Corinthians – 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
• The Thessalonians – 1 Thessalonians 1:9

Baptists in America

Part of an ongoing series on Southern Baptist history . . . 

Baptists in America seem to be a separate independent development.  That is, Baptists were not begun by English Baptists who brought Baptist thinking to America, but by individuals, who became Baptists after they arrived. J. H. Shakespeare, an English Baptist historian, points out the importance of the Bible in Baptist beginnings.  He says one could wipe out all the religious groups of the 17th century, leave the Bible open, and tomorrow there would be Baptists.  And it was quite often the teaching of Scripture that led people to become Baptists.

Baptists in New England

Roger Williams (c. 1603-1684) was born in England and though trained as an Anglican clergyman, he became a separatist and out of necessity accepted a call to a church in Puritan New England in 1631, But his dissenting, radical, Biblical ideas of religious liberty and separation of church and state got him in trouble with the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where they also demanded that everyone conform or face government persecution. Williams had four things which troubled him.


1.      Liberty of Conscience – Are we not created in the image of God? If so, then what people think is between themselves and God. What good is coercion? It denies the sovereignty of God. 
2.      Separation from the World – Many who come to America return to Britain after a time. If you left England because things were wrong there, why would you go back to that government and its state Church? 
3.      Separation of Church and State – Most important for Baptists was his claim that the civil magistrate has no power over the souls of their subjects, just their bodies.  In other words, the state has no authority to compel in matters of religion. The Bible teaches that government has one set of responsibilities and another set for the church.  
4.      Puritans’ mistreatment of Indians – Williams believed the Indians owned the land in the first place and not the King of England. The Puritans of New England preach righteousness on one hand and cheat the Indians out of their land on the other. God is not pleased with that.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony banished him to his Indians in the fall of 1635, just before the New England winter, in an attempt to kill him. Williams bought land from the Indians for a fair value in 1636 and established Providence Plantations, but he was not a Baptist until 1639 when he accepted believers’ baptism by a man named Ezekiel Holyman, rejected infant baptism, and himself baptized 10 others. He then planted the first Baptist church in America at Providence, Rhode Island. 

But this Baptist phase lasted less than a year.  Williams came to believe that his rebaptism was invalid because the authority to baptize should be historically derived from the apostles.  He withdrew yet remained an active friend of the church the last 40 years of his life as a seeker or Come-Outer, believing that no church had the marks of a true church until God raised up some apostle who could validate this new baptism. Roger Williams’ legacy became his passion for personal liberty and his insistence on the separation of church and state.

While a more stable Baptist named John Clarke worked to secure the Rhode Island charter (in 1663), Puritans persecuted Baptists. Henry Dunster lost his job as president of Harvard College when he became a Baptist in 1653, and his family were thrown out of their home in mid-winter. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes went with John Clarke, and John Crandall to Lynn, Mass., to witness to a sick man. The Puritans arrested them for an illegal religious assembly. At court, they were assessed a fine, but Holmes refused to pay it. If he paid it, he said, he would be admitting wrong, and he stood instead on principle. The court then ordered him whipped. An example of the problem of the Church-state bond.

Baptists in the South

William Screven (c. 1629-1713), a native of Sommerton, England, emigrated to New England as a Baptist in the 1640s, accepting indentured servitude to pay his passage and working four years as a carpenter. He was ordained in 1682 by the First Baptist Church of Boston to plant a church at the ship-building town of Kittery, Maine, which he did the same year, and attracted Puritan government hostility and fines for preaching. He moved the church sometime 1693-96 to Charles Town, South Carolina, where the Carolina Proprietary Colony provided for freedom of religion for dissenters and Jews. Screven, a Particular Baptist, fit in among the many Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) who were there.

Screven planted the first Baptist church in the South at Charles Town with a mixture of Particular and General Baptists, serving it until age 77. When Screven retired as pastor, he warned the congregation to obtain a man to lead them as soon as possible and be careful that he is "orthodox in faith, and of blameless life, and does own the confession of faith put forth by our brethren in London in 1689 (Second London Confession)." First Baptist Church of Charleston would become one of the most influential Baptist churches in America. It fostered the Charleston stream of Baptists, with some of the most important Baptist leaders of the South. It was of more formal worship, more Calvinist, and more academic. Later Furman University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary would be birthed out of this influential church. Unfortunately in recent decades the church has moved to a more moderate theology and would be nearly unrecognizable to its early leaders.

Philadelphia Association

Elias Keach was an early leader of Baptists in Pennsylvania, where pacifist Quakers under William Penn had established freedom of religion. Elias was the son of Benjamim Keach, a prominent English Baptist pastor, who had been one of the signers of the Second London Baptist Confession and the man most responsible for the adoption of hymn-singing among Baptists.  After being converted under his own preaching in 1687, Elias formed Pennepek church in Pennsylvania in 1688, and led in the formation of numerous churches in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey area, which later formed the nucleus of the Philadelphia Association.  He and his father were influential in the decision of Philadelphia Baptists to adopt the Second London Confession as their own confession, and the most widely adopted confession of faith among Baptists in America until the 20th century. At the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, all the messengers affirmed the Philadelphia/Second London Confession of Faith as a statement of faith.

In 1707, five Baptist churches formed what would become the famous Philadelphia Association which at one time had a large geographical reach into the Midwest and south into the Carolinas. The Association formed for fellowship among the churches, to offer advice to the churches based on their ministry queries, to discipline ministers and withdraw fellowship from disorderly ones, and to encourage ministers’ education through mentoring or formal training. Most of the queries brought by churches to the Association meetings involved matters of church doctrine such as polity and practice (how are we to do?) and power and authority (what can we do?) By 1757, twenty-five churches were in the Association, and they were corresponding with the Charleston Association.

Sandy Creek and Separate Baptists

By 1700 there were 24 weak Baptist churches with 839 members in America, and they were fighting over the atonement, whether to lay hands on new converts or now (Hebrews 6:1-2), the validity of singing in church and whether hymns or the Psalms should be sung.  These churches were weak and mired in controversies.  But by 1790, Baptists could count 979 churches with 67,490 members, the largest denomination in the newly formed United States.  These Baptists were energetic, evangelistic, and working toward the development of a national convention of Baptists. What happened? The Great Awakening. 


The 1740s Great Awakening in New England under Jonathan Edwards brought a renewed understanding of personal conversion to Christ. So many of the people George Whitefield converted decided to become Baptists that he lamented, “My little chicks have become ducks.” Prior to the Great Awakening, people saw conversion as a slow process that happened over time. They confused conversion with sanctification.

 
Shubal Stearns (1706-1771) was a Congregationalist turned Baptist from New England who had preached Christ to the Mohawks (1754) and then moved south to settle on Sandy Creek in present-day Liberty, Randolph County, NC, accompanied by Daniel Marshall and fourteen others. 


Shubal Stearns and Sandy Creek created a new family of Baptists, the Separate Baptists. Though they were from a Particular, Calvinistic background, the Sandy Creek Revival deemphasized the precise, hardened theology of their Particular forebears with a one-page statement of faith. They encouraged an emotional response in a person under conviction of the Holy Spirit for sin, and they encouraged an experience of conversion to Christ, to make a definite decision to follow Christ. 


These Sandy Creek Baptists experienced incredible growth. In seventeen years, they had established 42 churches, sent out 125 men as church-planting missionaries, and gained over 900 members. Later Daniel Marshall would go to north Georgia and plant most of the early Baptist churches there. By 1829, over a thousand churches would be planted from of this one.

Separate Baptists were important because (1) they brought the Great Awakening to the South. (2) They provided much needed religious leadership to the frontier. (3) Their spiritual descendants were the core of what became the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845.

Three main branches of Baptists emerged. (1) The General or Free-Will Baptists. (2) The Particular or Regular Baptists whose theology was Calvinist. In the South they are called the Charleston Stream. (3) Sandy Creek or Separate Baptists whose theology was not as precise but who focused on evangelism, missionary zeal, and personal conversion to Christ. In the South they are also called the Sandy Creek Stream.

Benefits of Repentance

Repentance precedes God moving in revival and mercy that averts His furious judgment. Each one of us is due the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), and our only hope is the mercy of Jesus. When revival comes, God’s mercy supersedes his judgment (James 2:13). Repentance puts us under the mercy of God. Similar to an individual, when a group stands before God, like a church or a nation, and confesses its corporate sins, God responds according to 2 Chronicles 7:14, hearing from heaven, forgiving our sin, and healing our land. When there is brokenness over sin, humility, confession to sin to God and one another, and serious intercession, God moves in a mighty way in revival. We see personal and corporate reconciliation, restitution for sin, and restoration of relationships. There are other benefits to repentance.

• God remembers his covenant, takes pity on his people, and has compassion for us – Leviticus 26:40-42; Joel 2:17-18; Luke 15:20
• God opens the way of the Lord to come in power – Psalm 24:7-10; Isaiah 40:3-5; 57:14-15; Matthew 3:2-3, 11; Mark 1:1-4
• God stops oncoming judgment – Jeremiah 18:8; 26:3, 13; 42:10; Joel 2:13; Jonah 3:9; Luke 10:13
• God saves us from the pit of destruction and grants a full pardon – Isaiah 38:17; 55:7
• God covers our sin, forgives our guilt, and justifies us – Psalm 32:5; 51:1-9; Ezekiel 37:23; Mark 1:4; Luke 18:13-14; 1 John 1:9
• God gathers us back to Him and upholds our cause – Deuteronomy 30:4; 1 Kings 8:49; James 4:8; 1 Peter 2:25
• God gives us a new spirit, a new heart, and new deeds evidencing new life – Ezekiel 18:31; Matthew 3:8; Acts 11:18; 26:20
• God restores the joy of relationship and communion with him – Psalm 32:1-5; 51:1-19; Isaiah 57:2; Habakkuk 1:3; Acts 3:19
• God gives mercy and rest for our souls – Proverbs 28:1; Isaiah 30:15; 57:15; Jeremiah 6:16
• God restores hope to other sinners through the truth – Psalm 51:13-14; 2 Timothy 2:25
• God brings rejoicing in heaven and glory to Himself – Luke 15:7; Acts 11:18

Romans 11:1-32 - The Importance of Israel

Opening thought: Yesterday in Moscow, the Quartet met to try to find a way to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The Quartet is a self-appointed group made up of Russia, the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and these other major Mideast mediators urged Israel to halt all settlement construction. Israel has agreed to curb settlement construction in the West Bank, but not in east Jerusalem, claiming the entire city as Israel's eternal capital.

On Saturday, UN Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon rejected Israel's distinction between east Jerusalem and the West Bank, noting that both are – what he called – occupied lands.

"The world has condemned Israel's settlement plans in east Jerusalem," Ban told a news conference in Ramallah, in Israel’s ancestral land, called by the Quartet and most of the world, the West Bank. "Let us be clear. All settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory and must be stopped."

As a Bible-believing Christians, how do we handle these statements? How do we evaluate them in light of what the Bible teaches, and in light of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are Messianic Jews and those who are of Palestinian Arab ancestry? Is God finished with Israel? Has the Church replaced Israel as God’s chosen people? Is the political state of Israel in any way connected to the biblical Israel, and as Christians should we have any sympathy toward the state of Israel? That is the important issue of our day that I want to explore with you today so that when you watch the news or hear the White House positions or statement on current Mideast issues, you can have discernment as a believer in Jesus Christ.

Contextual Notes: Now open your Bibles with me to the New Testament book of Romans. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a masterpiece of theology. The first three chapters teach us about sin. The next five chapters teach us about salvation. Chapters 9-11 teach us about God’s sovereignty, justice, and faithfulness shown through His relationship with Israel. Chapters 12-16 show us how to live the life of Christ practically in light of the previous eleven chapters.

Our concern today is chapter eleven which falls at the end of Paul’s teaching on Israel and God’s character. Chapter nine is about His sovereignty, chapter ten his justice, and eleven his faithfulness. But Paul is also dealing with a pressing question among those of the Jewish/Gentile early church.

ROMANS 9-11: Has God’s Word failed? That was the big question that the congregation at Rome wanted to know. Paul’s short answer is No, because of God’s character of Sovereignty, Faithfulness, and Justice overlaid with Mercy.

Then what about Israel? All Israel will be saved through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 11:26). The eventual salvation of the Jews is part of the Good News of the Old Testament (Rom 1:2) to the Jew first (Rom 1:16). Therefore, Gentiles are commanded mercy to Israel (Rom 11:31). Romans 9-11 not a parenthesis between Romans 8 and 12 as some Bible teachers assert. It is integral to the book of Romans.

The Big Question: “Paul, if God is all powerful and faithful as you say (chap. 8), then why as more Gentiles come to Christ are more Jews rejecting it? Didn’t God say he had an everlasting love for Israel (Jeremiah 31:2)? If so, how can the Jews reject his love after centuries of relationship with Him and His Word (Rom 3:1-2)? They are being lost, and God’s everlasting love does not seem to be doing them any good! That worries us. How can we be sure of God’s promise that nothing separates us from God’s love (Rom 8:39)? Has God’s word failed?”

Romans 9-11 is Paul’s answer. The problem is found in Romans 9:1-6a. Israel’s rejection of the Gospel makes God’s promises appear to fail. The solution is found in Romans 9:6b-11:32. The celebration is found in Romans 11:33-36.

Romans 11 shows how God will fulfill His promises to the nation of Israel. Jewish “disobedience” (Rom 11:30) does not do away with God’s promises to Israel because His gifts and calling are irrevocable (Rom 11:29). Paul therefore cautions Gentile believers against anti-Semitism and false pride (Rom 11:13-26). Instead he shows us what our active role should be to hasten the salvation of the Jewish people (Rom 11:30-36).

Read: Romans 11:1-32

Key Truth: Paul wrote Romans 11 to teach believers about God’s faithfulness to the nation of Israel.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about the importance of Israel. 

Sermon Points:

1. Israel is not rejected (Rom 11:1-6)

2. Israel has made the nations rich (Rom 11:7-16)

3. Israel is our root (Rom 11:17-24)

4. Israel will be redeemed (Rom 11:25-32)

Exposition: Note well,

1- ISRAEL IS NOT REJECTED (Romans 11:1-6)

a. Romans 11:1-6: If God rejects or repudiates or abandons Israel His people, then God has broken His word. If the gospel means believing in a God who breaks His word, then the gospel must be rejected. Paul replies in the strongest possible language, “Heaven forbid!” Paul himself is a Jew (Rom 9:6-13; 2 Cor 11:22; Gal 1:13-14; 2:15; Phil 3:5-6; Acts 22:3; 23:6; 26:5).

b. Paul therefore uses God’s Word to show He has not repudiated His people (1 Samuel 12:22; Psalm 94:14). The Gospel is not in opposition to God’s Word. The Gospel IS God’s Word, Paul shows from Scripture. There is a remnant as he shows in his illustration of Elijah (Rom 11:2-4). God is sovereign, just, and merciful and is fulfilling His promises in history, even when it appears differently. In verse 6 Paul says again (Rom 9:30-32), that legalistic works are incompatible with grace which requires no effort or prior deeds, but only trust (Eph 2:8-10).

c. God is not finished with Israel. He has made promises to the Jewish people, and He plans to fulfill his promises. (Genesis 22:17-18) 

d. Israel is the only nation created by an act of God. (Gen. 12: 1-3, 6-7)

e. God entered into an eternal blood covenant with Abraham including the mandate to possess the land. (Gen. 12:6-7; 13:15-17)

f. The boundaries of Israel are registered in the Word of God. (Gen. 15:18-21; Ezek. 47:13-48:29)

g. God has sworn to protect and defend Israel  (Psalm 121:4; Zech. 14:2-5) 

h. God promised that Israel would be recreated in a day. (Isaiah 66:8: 8)

i. On May 15, 1948, the United Nations recognized the State of Israel (Isaiah 11:12; Gen. 17:7-8; Hosea 1:11; Isaiah 54:8-10)

j. Jesus blesses those who love the Jews – e.g., the Centurion (Luke 7:4-6)

k. God’s integrity is at stake here. Does God break his Word? (1 Sam. 12:22; Psalm 94:14)

l. APPLICATION: God does not break his Word. To say that God is finished with Israel or take a Calvinist position that the Church replaces Israel in the New Testament is to say that God breaks his Word.

2- ISRAEL HAS MADE THE NATIONS RICH (ROMANS 11:7-16)

a. Our Scripture, the Old and New Testaments written by Jewish authors, our Judeo-Christian heritage, many scientific discoveries by Jews, Adoption, Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant, points to the greatest Gift of all, our Lord Jesus Himself.

b. Romans 11:7- 12: The Jews have not attained what they worked so hard for, and have become stone-like (porosis). Paul quotes Moses (for Torah), Isaiah (for Prophets), and David (for Writings), representing the three sections of the Old Testament.

c. Verses 8-9: By speaking about the Bible without Jesus as Messiah, even their tables become a trap and keep them continually (not “forever”) in slavery to sin.

d. Verses 11-12: And even rejecting Jesus, they still have not fallen away permanently. Israel’s stumbling has meant deliverance for the Gentiles, fulfilling Deuteronomy 32:21. When they return to their Messiah, it will bring even greater riches! The deliverance the Gentiles had received was meant for Israel (Matt 10:6; 15:24), but Israel failed to receive it. While individual Jews received it, the majority did not. Therefore, it was offered to the Gentiles (Acts 13:42-47), but God has never stopped holding out His hands to Israel (Rom 10:21). The problem is that Gentile Christians have historically provoked Jews to hatred, not the Gospel.

e. Israel’s hardening has opened salvation and reconciliation to all nations. (Deut. 32:21; Romans 10:1; Acts 18:6)

f. APPLICATION: Informs our love for the Jews – being grateful to them and leading them toward their Messiah.

g. Informs our actions – Visit Israel. Show friendship to Jewish friends. Thank them for the heritage they have given you as a Christian. Affirm that you stand with Israel. Most Jews will be surprised that as a Christian you say such things.

3- ISRAEL IS OUR ROOT (ROMANS 11:17-24)

a. Romans 11:13-32: Paul now turns the Gentiles. Just in case Gentiles are thinking, “Yes indeed. God has replaced Israel with us the Christians.” Paul says that Christianity and anti-Semitism are completely incompatible. God is not finished with the Jews, either. The Church is not the “New Israel” replacing the “Old Israel.” Our salvation as Gentiles is linked to God’s promises to the Jews. Our Messiah is a Jew. Paul says that the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) will come to life through God’s promises through Jesus the Messiah! The Second Coming is linked with the Jewish people as a nation coming to faith in Jesus, so let’s tell the Jews of their Messiah!

b. We are inextricably linked by God’s order and plan. The Bible of the New Testament Church was the Old Testament. The Church was entirely Jewish in the beginning. Our Lord is a Jew. (Galatians 3:6-9; Psalm 122;Zechariah 12:2-3)

c. REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY: Within a few hundred years of the Resurrection, there arose a number of Christian theologians who saw the Jews involvement with the Romans in Jesus’ crucifixion and the destruction of the Temple as a sign that God was finished with Israel, rejected her once and for all. God’s new people would be the Church, the New Israel of God. God was finished with the Jews.

d. John Chrysostom (4th Century): Jews are “murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil. They know only one thing, to satisfy their gullets, get drunk, to kill and maim on another.” “You did slay Christ. You did lift violent hands against the Master. You did spill His precious blood. This is why you have no chance of atonement, excuse, or defense.” Chrysostom the golden-mouthed preacher is considered a saint today.

e. Martin Luther: “...we do not know to this day which devil has brought them here...like a plague, pestilence, pure misfortune in our country...They are just devils and nothing more.”

g. Origen, Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther. Luther at first was kind to Jews, but when they did not receive his message of justification by faith, he became embittered against them. He called for the Jews’ expulsion from Germany and destruction of their books and synagogues. Nazis later used his writings to justify their “final solution.” As Holocaust took place in which 6 million Jews were exterminated, the Church stood idly by, not lending a hand to the Jewish people.

f. Crusades: killed or drove away Jews from their land – 300,000 Jews in 1000 in Holy Land. By 1200 AD, only 1000 Jewish families remained, opening way for Islam to take the ascendancy.

h. Led to Inquisition, Crusades, burning of Jerusalem synagogue in 1099, pogroms of Europe, expelled from countries, Hitler used Luther’s sermons against the Jews, and today when Christians support Israel’s enemies and force Israel to give up her covenant land. To be fair, Calvin and Luther did not forsee 1948 – Israel a nation.

i. APPLICATION: Christianity and anti-Semitism is incompatible. Informs our present – Important that we befriend Israel – not that we agree with everything their government does but to support them while realizing that there are many persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ among the Palestinians.

j. Informs our prayer – We are dealing with spiritual forces which desire the extinction of Israel (Revelation 12). These are the same spiritual forces which hate Christ and Christianity. We pray for our own peace when we pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

4- ISRAEL WILL BE REDEEMED (ROMANS 11:25-32)

a. Miracle – Israel has been recovered after 2000 years of scattering – 1948.

b. How will they be saved (Romans 11:26)? They will receive Jesus as Savior and Messiah (Zechariah 12:10-13; 13:1; John 19:37; Revelation 1:7).

c. APPLICATION: Informs our future – We live in a sobering moment in history, and we could be the people of the last time. If not, our nation’s future is tied to how it regards and treats Israel. In that time, all nations will have turned against Israel. We must intercede and minister to Israel.

If you believe –

• That the Bible is the inspired Word of God

• That Jehovah God is a God of integrity and it is impossible for Him to break covenant because of His character,

• That Jesus Christ is our example, and we are to follow Him,

Then there is no Biblical alternative to supporting Israel and the Jewish people.

Invitation:

Those Particular Baptists

John Gill

Part of an ongoing series on Southern Baptist history . . . 

The first Baptists (1609-1612) were General (Free-Willer) Baptists who believed in a general atonement (that Christ died for all). Later, from a separate origin, another group emerged of what would be termed Particular Baptists, who believed in a particular atonement (that Christ died only for the elect, i.e., Calvinist). They came more directly out of the Puritan Revival in Britain, which was largely Calvinist in theology. Here’s how it happened.

Henry Jacob (1563-1624), from Kent, earned a degree from Oxford and was ordained as an Anglican priest. He pushed for Puritan reform of the Church of England, and in 1605 was arrested for writing Reasons taken out of Gods Word and the best humane Testimonies proving a necessitie of reforming our Churches in England. Jacob was released when he promised to keep his mouth shut. Taking the opportunity to get out of the country, he fled to Holland where he became acquainted with English and Dutch dissenters. Their views influenced Jacob to become a moderate Separatist. Moderate Separatists, while believing the Anglican Church generally to be a false church, allowed for some Anglican congregations to be true churches. Jacob’s separatism was more gracious than John Smyth’s, and he disliked the narrow spirit and rigidness which led to the split between Smyth and Francis Johnson.

With a kinder, gentler Separatism that accepted the Church of England in some sense as a true church, Henry Jacob returned to England in 1616 and established an independent church in Southwark, London with pastors, elders, and deacons. Modern Baptists actually draw more of their beliefs and practices from this group than John Smyth’s. The congregation became known as the JLJ church, the initials of its first three pastors, Henry Jacob, John Lathrop, and Henry Jessey.

The LJL church had its ups and downs. Jacob left the church and sailed for Virginia in 1622, dying two years later near Jamestown. Under John Lathrop’s pastoral leadership, many new Separatists joined the church, but in 1630 these new members were unhappy when it became known that long-time members occasionally attended the Anglican services. One member of the LJL church even had his child baptized at an Anglican parish. Minutes record that a Mr. Dupper in protest left the church to form his own Separatist congregation.

Three years later, in 1633, Samuel Eaton, Marke Luker, a Greek man who advocated immersion, and Richard Blunt, another budding immersionist, with a total of seventeen persons asked to be dismissed to form a new church and receive “further baptism.” Whether they objected to the baptism of children, the baptism being done in an Anglican church, or the mode of baptism, no one is sure, but a church with Calvinistic theology formed that year in London, and some of them were rebaptized.

John Lathrop left the LJL church in 1634, and in 1637 Henry Jessey came to lead them, but the next year there was more trouble. In 1638, a group of six members left who were said to be “of ye same Judgment with Sam. Eaton” regarding believer’s baptism. The six joined pastor John Spilsbury to form the first Particular Baptist congregation, rejecting infant baptism and baptizing by immersion. In 1640, back at the LJL Church, Pastor Henry Jessey and Richard Blunt became convinced by Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:4 that baptism “ought to be by dipping ye Body into ye Water, resembling Burial and riseing again.”

In 1640 the LJL Church sent Richard Blunt to Holland to be baptized by immersion. The next year, Blunt came back and baptized a Bible teacher named Mr. Blacklock. They together then baptized 52 members. By 1644, seven Particular Baptist churches issued a joint confession of faith, the famous First London Confession, specifying baptism for believers only and the “way and manner of the dispensing of this Ordinance the Scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body under water: it being a signe, must answer the thing signified.” These churches were Calvinistic Baptists who believed in particular redemption or limited atonement. Why didn’t they become Presbyterians? Because they did not believe in infant baptism and practiced baptism by immersion.

Baptism by immersion was attacked by non-Baptists in pamphlets and pulpits. Critics called it unscriptural, unnecessary, unhealthy, and immodest. Stories circulated of people who got sick and died soon after immersion. Baptists in defense of immersion, came forward to testify that they were baptized in rivers where ice had to be broken without ill effect on their health. Critics made claims of women being baptized in flimsy garments and of co-ed naked baptisms. While these were almost always vicious rumors, early on in a few cases it may have been true. One Baptist preacher in 1643 said that true baptism called “for all to be thus rebaptized stark naked and diped as well, head as tayle.” The rumors must have been the reason that the 1644 Confession specified that immersion should be performed “with convenient garments both upon the administrator and subject, with all modestie.”

The Particular Baptists had other problems. They so exaggerated certain aspects of election and predestination that these ideas dominated their theology, and everything had to be judged in the light of extreme Calvinism. As a result of this emphasis, they gradually lost a zeal for evangelism and vital church life. And the Particulars at times went to extremes. One was hyper-Calvinism, or double predestination, the belief that God predestines everyone somewhere, either heaven or hell, and that some are created as non-elect to go to hell to demonstrate God’s justice. Some hyper-Calvinists would not preach the gospel to the unconverted. The gospel is not for them because they are unelect. 

The famed John Gill (1696-1771) believed this. In a pastorate of over fifty years in London, he wrote a commentary which singularly commented on every single verse in the Bible. Charles Spurgeon countered hyper-Calvinism by saying, “I prefer to preach the gospel to everybody and see what happens.” The other extreme was Anti-nomianism (anti-law). Since God was Sovereign over all and in control of everything, even foreordaining all personal behavior, any way I live was chosen by God, so I can have no concern for morals, because whether I’m elect or not is not my responsibility. I’ll just live it up and hope for the best after I’m dead. If I’m elect, my immoral life won’t matter. If I’m non-elect, at least I had a good time before I got sent to hell. 

As a result, Particular Baptist churches declined, evangelism waned, and the entire group of churches withered. Revival was desperately needed.

Andrew Fuller

Andrew Fuller: A Kinder, Gentler Baptist Calvinism

After 1750, a revival took place among Particular Baptists that helped them recover more vital theology, preaching, and evangelism. This movement drew from the power of the Great Awakening led by the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield. Robert Hall, Sr. (1728-1791) preached a sermon in 1779 to the Northampton Association from Isaiah 57:14, “remove the stumbling block from my people.” Hall affirmed that “the way to Jesus is graciously laid open for everyone who chooses to come to him.”

Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was a big, broad-shouldered man over six feet tall with incredible strength. Converted at sixteen, by twenty-nine he took his second pastorate at Kettering where he served the rest of his life. Reared in a hyper-Calvinist church, he dared not give a gospel invitation until he read in 1775 a pamphlet by Abraham Taylor, The Modern Question, which showed from Scripture that Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostles addressed the gospel to sinners and invited them to believe. As a member of the Soham church, Fuller chided a church member who was frequently drunk. The drunkard excused himself citing his hyper-Calvinist views that he could not help himself and therefore was not accountable. The church membership backed the drunkard, indicating their hyper-Calvinist position. Later when Fuller became pastor of the Soham church, he complained that they were inclined to find fault with his ministry as it became more in depth in the Scriptures, more practical in application, and as he freely enforced long invitations to the Gospel in worship. In ten years at Soham Church, he did not see a single baptism. As a result, he began to study and write down what he understood about the Atonement from the Scriptures. “The Gospel is a feast,” Fuller wrote, “and you are to invite guests.”

Andrew Fuller became the greatest theologian English Baptists produced. Fuller offered a different Calvinism in his book, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. The first fifteen and last fifteen pages give you his main ideas. He deals with the Atonement differently by teaching both the Sufficiency and Efficiency of the Atonement.

·         Christ’s Atonement is fully Efficient to save all the elect completely. The Atonement saves only those who trust Christ and not the whole world.

·         Christ’s Atonement is completely Sufficient to save everyone who calls on Him. If the whole world called on Christ, they would be saved.

Fuller said, “I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who will hear it. . . . I therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls and warning to them, to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as means in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I consider it as a part of my duty, which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.”  Andrew Fuller’s view gets the Baptist Missionary Vision rolling in people like his friend William Carey.