Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA)
Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA) was founded on March 11, 1997. The first General Assembly met to establish a charter membership of 24 churches from 14 states. Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA). Reformed Baptist Churches ARBCA is an association of Reformed Baptist churches working together to faithfully hold to biblical truth and vigorously proclaim the gospel to a needy world.
In addition to the cooperative efforts (ARBCA) is designed to develop the kingdom of Christ providing a fellowship where churches of common confession may find mutual encouragement, assistance, edification, and counsel. It is an organized forum of godly men, each holding to the same confession of faith, to help churches work through various difficulties together. The purposes are: foreign missions, home missions, ministerial training, and publications.
History
September 3, 1689, when 107 churches were represented at the first English Particular Baptist General Assembly. The Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, was formally adopted by these churches.
The Reformed Baptist Mission Services (RBMS) as a cooperative effort in foreign missions was established in March 1985 Anderson, Indiana. It was a representation of 14 Reformed Baptist churches. It existed to serve churches both large and small in doing what a single church found to be difficult or even impossible. These churches agreed that a biblical ecclesiastical interdependency could be practiced without sacrificing scriptural independency.
March 11, 1997 was a historic day, one of great moment in the recent history of American Reformed Baptists. On that date twenty-four churches, meeting at the Cornerstone Church in Mesa, Ariz. covenanted together to from the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America (ARBCA).
Belief:
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, depends not on the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God its Author (Who is Truth itself). Therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture, to which nothing is to be added at any time, either by new revelation of the Spirit, or by the traditions of men.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the Lord our God is the one and only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of Himself. They believe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit All three are infinite, without beginning, and are therefore only one God, Who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties, and also their personal relations.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God has decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things which shall ever come to pass.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes in the beginning it pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, to create or make the world and all things in it both visible and invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God the good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, upholds, directs, disposes and governs all creatures and things, from the greatest to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which secured life for him while he kept it, and although God warned him that he would die if he broke it, yet man did not live long in this honor.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to Him as their Creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life except by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, and this He has been pleased to express in the form of a covenant.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes it pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, in accordance with the covenant made between them both, to be the Mediator between God and man; to be Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the Heir of all things, and the Judge of all the world. To the Lord Jesus He gave, from all eternity, a people to be His seed. These, in time, would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified by the Lord Jesus.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God has indued the will of man, by nature, with liberty and the power to choose and to act upon his choice. This free will is neither forced, nor destined by any necessity of nature to do good or evil.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes those whom God has predestinated to life, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time to effectually call by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death which they are in by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. He enlightens their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God. He takes away their heart of stone and gives to them a heart of flesh. He renews their wills, and by His almighty power, causes them to desire and pursue that which is good. He effectually draws them to Jesus Christ, yet in such a way that they come absolutely freely, being made willing by His grace.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes those whom God effectually calls He also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting them as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone. They are not justified because God reckons as their righteousness either their faith, their believing, or any other act of evangelical obedience. They are justified wholly and solely because God imputes to them Christ’s righteousness. He imputes to them Christ’s active obedience to the whole law and His passive obedience in death. They receive Christ’s righteousness by faith, and rest on Him. They do not possess or produce this faith themselves, it is the gift of God.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God has vouchsafed, that in Christ, His only Son, and for His sake, all those who are justified shall be made partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number of the children of God and enjoy their liberties and privileges. They have His name put upon them, and receive the Spirit of adoption. They have access to the throne of grace with boldness, and are enabled to cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ They are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him as by a father, yet they are never cast off, but are sealed to the day of redemption, when they inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes those who are united to Christ, effectually called, and regenerated, having had a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, are then further sanctified in a very real and personal way. Because of the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection. And by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed. The different lusts of the body of sin are increasingly weakened and mortified, and Christ’s people are increasingly quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to practice all true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the grace of faith by which the elect are enabled to believe, so that their souls are saved, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily brought into being by the ministry of the Word. It is also increased and strengthened by the work of the Spirit through the ministry of the Word, and also by the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes although temporary believers, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions that they are in the favour of God and in a state of salvation, such a hope on their part will perish. Yet those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love Him in sincerity, and who endeavor to walk in all good conscience before Him, may be certainly assured in this life that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And such a hope shall never make them ashamed.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes those who are united to Christ, effectually called, and regenerated, having had a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, are then further sanctified in a very real and personal way. Because of the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection. And by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed. The different lusts of the body of sin are increasingly weakened and mortified, and Christ’s people are increasingly quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to practice all true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given by the Father. In this day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but also all people who have lived upon the earth. They shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done when in the body, whether good or evil.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances of positive and sovereign institution, appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in His Church to the end of the world.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes the bodies of men after death return to dust, and undergo corruption, but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God Who gave them. The souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ, and look upon the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and under darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. The Scripture acknowledges no other place than these two for souls separated from their bodies.
Reformed Baptist Churches believes God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given by the Father. In this day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but also all people who have lived upon the earth. They shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done when in the body, whether good or evil.
Reference:
Official Web site for the Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA): http://www.arbca.com/
Cite Article Source
MLA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne “Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA):.” Becker Bible Studies Library Aug 2013.< https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2456,>.
APA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2013, August) “Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA):.” Becker Bible Studies Library. Retrieved from https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2456,.
Chicago Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2013) “Reformed Baptist Churches (ARBCA):.” Becker Bible Studies Library (August), https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2456, (accessed).
