An Overlooked Baptist Distinctive
By Cyrus B. Fletcher,
September 2000

I read with interest the comments from church history about the distinctives that make us Baptists. Writers mention freedom of conscience and religion, soul competency, priesthood of the believer, believer's baptism and church autonomy.

Others point to our cooperative polity and our way of doing missions. All these are important to anyone wanting identification as Baptist.

I want to consider an almost hidden, overlooked distinctive that separated Baptists from other groups growing out of the Reformation. Along with others, Baptists abandoned Apostolic succession as necessary for an authentic church. What basic presuppositions did they hold that earned them the Baptist label?

People branded Baptist were like the followers of the Way in Syrian Antioch because they were different. "...And it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called 'Christians.'"(Acts 11:26) They gave the shortened form of the earlier Anabaptist to those who insisted that only believers who had professed their commitment to Christ for themselves could be baptized and that by immersion.

They rejected any saving efficacy to ritual, rite or symbol even by the church congregated. When they partook of the Lord's Supper, they insisted that salvation or grace was not in the elements or symbols, but in personal confrontation with the living Christ. For them the personal presence of the Holy Spirit empowered their faith in Jesus to yield an authentic religious experience with the living God.

Such affirmation and discerning rejection earned them the label of Baptists. Were they correct to reject salvation by rite or symbol? Were they correct to insist that Christian symbols, experience and even the Bible refer to a living reality beyond themselves? The content and meaning of the Bible lead me to answer "Yes!" to both questions.

One of my favorite pastoral stories recounts how a pulpit committee chairperson introduced me as a lifelong member of the Christian church. Knowing he had come from a Disciples background to join a Baptist church I blurted out, "First let me say that I am a Baptist. No one is going to make a Christian out of me!" I was relieved when they all joined in laughing at the joke.

The Bible is knit with the basic premise that God is the one and only true God because he is alive. The Bible says that God is the independent personal creator, the covenant maker, the giver of promises, the righteous judge of all people and the faithful forgiver of sinners who repent unto Him.

Isaiah and others depict the personal nature of salvation and religious experience. For instance, "I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." (Isaiah 43:25) Ezekiel prophesied "...It is only the person who sins that shall die," (18:4b) and "...the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own."(18:20).

Ezekiel said "...Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit."(18:31c) In both Isaiah and Joel we have the promise of God. "I will pour my spirit upon your descendents, and my blessing on your offspring."(Isaiah 44:3b & Joel 2:28-29) The new heart and spirit come from God in the dynamic of personal faith. Branded Baptists earned their reputation by insisting that the church administer the ordinances, maintain the purity of the gospel and guide the community obligations of Christians.

However, the church does not have the power or authority to make a person into a child of God. God takes care of that personally as the Holy Spirit. Peter wrote, "He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are set on God."  (1 Peter 1:20-21) Some would abandon a distinctive so integral to our Baptist beginnings by making equal the symbols of the written word with the power and reality of the living Word.

Nicodemus said to Jesus, "...We know that you are a teacher who has come from God...."(John 3:2) Believing that was not enough to get Nicodemus the new heart and spirit of being born again, I do not like to argue from silence, but John 3:16 says nothing about the written word.

It stands Baptist distinctives on their ear to say 'Believe John 3:16 and it will save you.' There is a profound difference between the written word, as effective as it is and the living Word with the power to save. Jesus identified the essential personal nature of God and the setting in which salvation takes place. Jesus said, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24)

The fuller knowledge of the written word by the Jews did not make them more saved than the ignorance of the Samaritans. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that all must submit to the Messiah. "Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'"(John 4:26) Paul wrote about the reality of acceptance by God before symbolic expression. "[Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised."(Romans 4:11a) An idea or a word may be enlightening, but it cannot forgive you or change your head and spirit.

Many misspeak by saying someone can be saved by believing the gospel, as though certain words, formulas or facts can transform the human head and spirit. Branded Baptists would not buy that sod of convoluted word magic. Why would anyone equate a written or spoken statement with the vibrant personal reality of the living Christ who is present to accept them, forgive their sins and make them new?

Now just any old Christ will not do. He is not the creation of our imaginations nor is he at the disposal of church, priest or sacrament. I have great difficulty seeing how a Baptist could make a statement like the one Harold O'Chester of Austin wrote in a late June 2000, letter to the Baptist Standard.

He wrote "...We must affirm the Bible to be God's word and inerrant. Without that authority our Jesus is without real merit." Sadly, those who revised the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000 must think the same way. My position is that the presence and power of the risen Christ gives merit to the Bible and authenticates it as the authoritative word of God.

The overlooked distinctive that marks Biblical interpretation as Baptist states that symbols, rites and words must refer to a reality beyond themselves. (See 1 Corinthians 15:17-18) If God and his Christ are not alive and well, an inerrant Bible will not help. I cannot help but wonder what the Baptist Press attack dogs will do with that phrase "...Our Jesus is without real merit?"

Baptists readily accept and proclaim the content and meaning of one of the Bible's wondrous promises. "Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him...receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."(1 Peter1:8-9)

The Baptist distinctive of insisting on personal faith in a living Savior while rejecting the saving efficacy of symbols, rites or decrees will stand us Baptists in good stead in the midst of the controversy which threatens to change that which identifies us as Baptists.