Regular Baptists
Baptists are distinguished from other Christian groups by specific Biblical characteristic. These characteristics are called distinctives. The name “Baptist” identifies people who hold those characteristics. These Baptist distinctives relate to characteristic of their doctrinal position. Distinctives are reached through careful study of the Bible. It is these distinctives that sets Baptists apart from other Christian groups. It is a distinctive group of doctrines and polities for Baptists. Baptist distinctives includes: 1. The Bible is the final authority in all matters of belief and practice because the Bible is inspired by God and bears the absolute authority of God Himself. 2. The local church is an independent body accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. 3. Every born-again believer has direct access to the throne of God. Therefore, since every child of God shares in the priesthood of the believers, all have the same right as ordained ministers to communicate with God, interpret Scripture, and minister in Christ’s name. 4. Every individual Christian has the liberty to believe, right or wrong, as their own conscience dictates. 5. Local church membership is restricted to individuals who give a believable testimony of personal faith in Christ and have publicly identified themselves with Him in believer’s baptism. 6. The Bible mandates only two offices in the church which is the pastor and deacon. 7. There should be a separation of Church and State. God established both the church and the civil government, and He gave each its own distinct sphere of operation.
The local Regular Baptist church is an independent body accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. All human authority for governing the local church resides within the local church itself. Thus the church is autonomous, or self-governing. Regular Baptists believes that civil government is of divine appointment for the interests and good order of human society; that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed; except in those things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ Who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the coming King of kings.
Regular Baptists practices two ordinances: baptism of believers by immersion in water, identifying the individual with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and the Lord’s Supper, or communion, commemorating His death for our sins.
History:
General Baptists in the middle colonies of the United States were more commonly called Free Baptists. Particular Baptists, in and around freer colonies such as Rhode Island, came to be called Regular Baptists.
Until the Philadelphia Baptist Association was formed in 1707, the Free (General) Baptists had a numerical advantage over the Regular or Particular Baptists. The Philadelphia association formulated a striking Confession of Faith (1742) that drew heavily from the Second London Confession of Faith (1689) and the earlier Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). The Philadelphia Baptists, who also advocated an aggressive missions program, shifted the tide of the number of Free Baptists to Regular Baptists throughout New England and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard.
The name “Regular Baptist” became common and did not necessarily designated particular atonement beliefs prior to the Great Awakening. It is difficult to sort through all of the various groups. It was during the western expansion of America, the Free Baptists or general atonement, held to a strict belief that baptism by immersion not only placed one into the local church membership but allowed the baptized new member to partake in communion. This “closed” communion teaching gave these churches a decided designation of “Strict Baptists.” These Strict Baptists also called themselves Regular Baptists because of their position.
The Old Regular Baptists is an early American group from the New Salem Association of United Baptists, which was formed in Kentucky in 1825. The association changed its name to Regular United (1854), then to Regular Primitive (1870), and then to Regular Baptist (1871). In 1892, the group finally settled on “Old Regular.” In addition to observing a closed communion, these Regular Baptists also practice foot-washing.
The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) has affirmed a moderately Calvinistic statement of faith based on the New Hampshire Confession (1833). Its use of the word “Regular” has never been a direct reference to a particular view of the atonement; rather, it stems from the later, more generic meaning of the word. In The Baptists (1988), William Henry Brackney summarized this long history by stating, “Baptists have differed widely about their origins and their composition.” (Brackney, 1988).
Belief:
Regular Baptists believes in the authority and sufficiency of the Holy Bible, consisting of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, as originally written; that it was verbally and inspired and is the product of Spirit-controlled men, and therefore is infallible and inerrant in all matters of which it speaks.
Regular Baptists believes there is one and only one living and true God, an infinite Spirit, the Maker and supreme Ruler of Heaven and earth; inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence and love; that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, equal in every divine perfection and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.
Regular Baptists believes the Holy Spirit is a divine person, equal with God the Father and God the Son and of the same nature; that He was active in the creation; that in His relation to the unbelieving world He restrains the evil one until God’s purpose is fulfilled; that He convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment; that He bears witness to the truth of the gospel in preaching and testimony.
Regular Baptists believes in the reality and personality of Satan, the Devil; and that he was created by God as an angel but through pride and rebellion became the enemy of his Creator; that he became the unholy god of this age and the ruler of all the powers of darkness and is destined to the judgment of an eternal justice in the lake of fire.
Regular Baptists believes the Biblical account of the creation of the physical universe, angels, and man; that this account is neither allegory nor myth, but a literal, historical account of the direct, immediate creative acts of God without any evolutionary process; that man was created by a direct work of God and not from previously existing forms of life; and that all men are descended from the historical Adam and Eve, first parents of the entire human race.
Regular Baptists believes the Bible teaches that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman and that sexual intimacy is to be expressed only within the bounds of a Biblically defined marriage. Any other form of marriage or sexual intimacy is immoral and a perversion of God’s gracious will.
Regular Baptists believes that Jesus was begotten of the Holy Spirit in a miraculous manner, born of Mary, a virgin, as no other man was ever born or can be born of woman, and that He is both the Son of God and God, the Son.
Regular Baptists believes that the salvation of sinners is divinely initiated and wholly of grace through the mediatorial offices of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who, by the appointment of the Father, voluntarily took upon Himself our nature, yet without sin, and honored the divine law by His personal obedience, thus qualifying Himself to be our Savior; that by the shedding of His blood in His death He fully satisfied the just demands of a holy and righteous God regarding sin; that His sacrifice consisted not in setting us an example by His death as a martyr, but was a voluntary substitution of Himself in the sinner’s place, the Just dying for the unjust, Christ the Lord bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; that having risen from the dead He is now enthroned in Heaven, and uniting in His wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with divine perfection, He is in every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate and an all-sufficient Savior.
Regular Baptists believes in the bodily resurrection of Christ and in His ascension into Heaven, where He now sits at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest interceding for us.
Regular Baptists believes that in order to be saved, sinners must be born again; that the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus; that it is instantaneous and not a process; that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and in sins is made a partaker of the divine nature and receives eternal life, the free gift of God; that the new creation is brought about by our sovereign God in a manner above our comprehension, solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth, so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the gospel; that its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance, faith and newness of life.
Regular Baptists believes that justification is that judicial act of God whereby He declares the believer righteous upon the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any work of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s shed blood.
Regular Baptists believes the sanctification is the divine setting a part of the believer unto God accomplished in a threefold manner; first, an eternal act of God, based upon redemption in Christ, establishing the believer in a position of holiness at the moment he trusts the Savior; second, a continuing process in the saint as the Holy Spirit applies the Word of God to the life; third, the final accomplishment of this process at the Lord’s return.
Regular Baptists believes all who are truly born again are kept by God the Father for Jesus Christ.
Regular Baptists believes a local church is an organized congregation of immersed believers, associated by covenant of faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by His laws; and exercising the gifts, rights and privileges invested in them by His Word; that its officers are pastors and deacons, godly men whose qualifications, claims and duties are clearly defined in the Scriptures.
Regular Baptists believes the true mission of the church is the faithful witnessing of Christ to all men as we have opportunity. We hold that the local church has the absolute right of self-government free from the interference of any hierarchy of individuals or organizations; and that the one and only Superintendent is Christ through the Holy Spirit; that it is Scriptural for true churches to cooperate with each other in contending for the faith and for the furtherance of the gospel; that each local church is the sole judge of the measure and method of its cooperation; that on all matters of membership, of polity, of government, of discipline, of benevolence, the will of the local church is final.
Regular Baptists believes the Christian baptism is the single immersion of a believer in water to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem our identification with the crucified, buried and risen Savior, through Whom we died to sin and rose to a new life; that baptism is to be performed under the authority of the local church; and that it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership.
Regular Baptists believes the Lord’s Supper is the commemoration of His death until He come, and should be preceded always by solemn self-examination. We believe that the Biblical order of the ordinances is baptism first and then the Lord’s Supper, and that participants in the Lord’s Supper should be immersed believers.
Regular Baptists believes the obedience to the Biblical commands to separate ourselves unto God from worldliness and ecclesiastical apostasy.
Regular Baptists believes in the sovereign selection of Israel as God’s eternal covenant people, that she is now dispersed because of her disobedience and rejection of Christ, and that she will be re-gathered in the Holy Land and, after the completion of the Church, will be saved as a nation at the second advent of Christ.
Regular Baptists believes in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, an event that can occur at any moment, and that at that moment the dead in Christ shall be raised in glorified bodies, and the living in Christ shall be given glorified bodies without tasting death, and all shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air before the seven years of the Tribulation.
Regular Baptists believes the Tribulation, which follows the Rapture of the Church, will be culminated by the premillennial return of Christ in power and great glory to sit upon the throne of David and to establish His kingdom upon this earth.
Regular Baptists believes there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that only those who are justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Spirit of our God are truly righteous in His esteem; while all such as continue in impenitence and unbelief are in His sight wicked and under the curse; and this distinction holds among men both in and after death, in the everlasting felicity of the saved and the everlasting conscious suffering of the lost in the lake of fire.
Reference:
Brackney William Henry. (1988).The Baptists. New York: Greenwood Press.
Official website: http://www.garbc.org
Cite Article Source
MLA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne “Regular Baptists:.” Becker Bible Studies Library Sept 2013.< https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2466,>.
APA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2013, September) “Regular Baptists:.” Becker Bible Studies Library. Retrieved from https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2466,.
Chicago Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2013) “Regular Baptists:.” Becker Bible Studies Library (September), https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2466, (accessed).
