So, here at Free Grace Baptist Church, we're starting a new video series, basically answering questions that people have. It could be theology, around faith, and different things. So, we've got a form on our website to facilitate those questions. They can do it anonymous if they like.
And the short video is easy to share with your friends, with your family, easy to consume. So, for the first question, I thought we'd start with something really fundamental to who we are. So I have a question from a young man, Justin, and the question is, what is a Reformed Baptist? So is there a succinct, sufficient answer on that one?
Do you want to go? Sure, I can start with that one.
What Does Reformed Mean?
A lot of people think it's a weird thing, right? Yeah, it is a little weird because Reformed is typically associated with infant baptism, and so I think it's helpful for us to add the Baptist moniker to distinguish ourselves from our Paedo-Baptist brothers and sisters. But certainly, let's talk about Reformed first and what that means, and so I think John DeWitt's book is pretty helpful, What is the Reformed Faith?, and I'll try to just summarize a few points. But the importance of the authority of Scripture, certainly that is cardinal for anyone who's Reformed, especially against the Papists, against Roman Catholicism, which views tradition on par with Scripture.
We're not against tradition, but it's not on par with Scripture. Scripture is our final authority and our ultimate authority. concerning all things that pertain to life and godliness, so the authority of scripture. With that, the centrality of worship. We worship our triune God acceptably.
According to Hebrews chapter 10, He is a consuming fire, so we must approach Him acceptably. That is, according to John 4, we worship Him in spirit and in truth. So we don't get to do anything we want when we come together, but we worship Him according to His ways and mainly His words. So we sing the Word, we pray the Word, we preach the Word. and we partake of the word in the sacraments.
So centrality of worship. And then I guess as a subheading with that is the centrality of preaching. That is the pinnacle of the worship service. God speaking to his people and encouraging them, uplifting them, calling the elect out of darkness into marvelous light, calling sinners to everlasting life.
It is by the word that faith is wrought. So preaching is important. And then also as well, the importance of the covenants. That is, I think many, I've heard one of my professors say that Reformed theology is covenant theology.
How does God interact with human beings? Or I guess more precisely, how do we interact with God? And it is by way of covenants. So those things are central and important.
And if there's anything I forgot, I'm sure Pastor Butler can add a few things as far as what Reformed is.
The 1689 Confession as Touchstone
Yeah, I think commitment to the Second London Confession, and the commitment isn't slavish. It's not recognizing it as the authority, an authority like the Bible. But we believe that confession, not insofar as it is biblical, but because it is biblical. We believe that it does teach the truth of those chief doctrines from Scripture.
So, I think that a Reformed Baptist is one that embraces those things that Mike has mentioned. You know, I think today it's quite commonplace for somebody to say, I'm a Reformed Baptist, and by that they mean they're a Calvinist. And I'm not denigrating Calvinism, certainly Reformed includes Calvinism, but Calvinism is a part of Reformed. So, as Mike said, covenant theology, regulative principle of worship. the sorts of things that we see in our confession of faith, those distinctives, that ultimately is, I think, a good working definition of Reformed Baptist.
And, of course, our theological forefathers were called Particular Baptists, which I personally wouldn't have a problem with that sort of nomenclature or that moniker. I think that's an acceptable and a good name. Probably could have saved us a bit of confusion in the 20th and 21st centuries in terms of the language Reformed Baptist. So, I've been here for several years, and it was more commonplace when I first got here than it is now.
But the question always came, how can you be Reformed and Baptist? So, I think the confession of faith is a good starting point, and I think sort of subscription to that confession, not loosely, but in what we might call a full or a strict way is most helpful for definition.
What Does Baptist Mean?
And then if I can go on to define Baptist, I think Dr. Renahan has a helpful definition of what a Baptist is, and I'll try to paraphrase as best as possible, but he uses the language of a self-confessed proponent of the historical traits of the Baptist movement. And so, I think the key thing there is self-confessed, while there are a lot of churches that believe and practice believers' baptism, they're not self-confessed as Baptist, and they would not certainly espouse the historical traits and understand the historical movement and its unfolding and its beginning in the 1600s. And so, I think that's important.
Self-confessed, espousing the historical traits. So, certainly important for our particular Baptist forefathers was the believer's baptism. We don't practice infant baptism, but also following the congregationalists and the importance of congregational church polity as opposed to Presbyterian church polity. And so, I think that's a helpful definition of what a Baptist self-confessed. proponent of the historical movement.
Thank you.