New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches is a national fellowship of fundamental independent Baptist churches. It was proposed as a national organization for independent fundamental separatist Baptist.
The origin of the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches comes from the Conservative Baptist Association of America. There was discontent in 1950 among the fundamentalist members who wanted the Conservative Baptist Association to represent a more separatist perspective, and a clearer pre-millennial and pre-tribulation in their doctrines concerning the human soul in its relation to death, judgment, Heaven and Hell.
Representatives assembled at Marquette Manor Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois in 1964 and a new association was born. The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches was constituted May 28, 1965 at Beth Eden Baptist Church in Denver, Colorado. The formal organization was finalized June 10, 1965 at Eagledale Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana where the Constitution and a Confession of Faith were adopted.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believes the local church of Christ is visible and is a voluntary and independent self-governing group of baptized believers. They believe they are a democracy and have the power and the right to confess its own faith in accordance with the New Testament. They believe each congregation recognizes its own democratic self-government has the authority to carry out the will of the Lord Jesus Christ.
History
The founder of the movement of the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches was Richard V. Clearwaters. He was the founder of the Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was also a pastor for forty-two years.
Richard Volley Clearwaters was born June 28, 1900 in Wilmot, Kansas. He came from a large family of eight children the son of Guy and Hannah Clearwaters. They lived in the territory of Oklahoma when it was opened for homesteading in 1901. They took an emigrant train to Spokane, Washington in 1907 and bought an eighty-acre farm, which is still owned by the Clearwaters family.
Richard ran away from home at the age of sixteen and caught a train to Canada and lived there for five years. He was discovered by a family friend after Richard had injured his right arm and was hospitalized. Richard’s mother wrote him and and he agreed to go home.
While home Richard was driving a large lumber wagon with his brother Weldon when a tragedy happened. Weldon fell off the wagon and was crushed under the wagon wheels and died a day later. Richard went into a great depression. The depression lasted a whole year until it was removed when a Holiness Methodist Preacher came to hold a revival at the Moran Prairie Methodist Church in Spokane, Washington. Richard received his conversion and was saved at that revival.
Richard Volley Clearwaters was called to the ministry and he accepted the calling. Richard attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago then attended Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago and received his BD degree in 1928. He graduated with a BA degree from Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1929. Richard earned his MA degree in 1933 at Chicago University.
He organized the Central Baptist Theological Seminary in 1956 because he felt a need for a fundamental seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota. Richard was the minister who led the Minnesota Baptist Association to withdraw from the Conservative Baptist Association in 1963. While being the pastor of the Fourth Baptist Church Richard Clearwaters was also the President of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in1982. He retired as the President of the Central Baptist Seminary in 1987. September 30, 1996 he went home to be with the Lord.
Belief
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believes the Bible is without error in its original writing. They believe it consists of the sixty six books in the Old Testaments and the New Testament. They believe the author of the Bible is God who used His Spirit to guide men and inspired them. They believe the Bible is the authority for faith and practice.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe in the Genesis account of Creation and that it is to be accepted literally and not figuratively. They believe the six days of creation in Genesis chapter one were solar, that is, twenty four hour days. They believe all animal and vegetable life was made directly. They believe it was God who established law that states they bring forth only after their own kind. They believe God created man after His own image and after His own likeness and did not evolve from any lower form of life.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believes there are one, and only one living and true God. They believe God is infinite, eternal, self-existing, and a perfect Spirit. They believe God is a personal Being, the creator of the universe. They believe in the unity of the Godhead being in three persons as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are equal in essence and in divine perfection, having distinct work.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe in total and complete separation as taught in the Word of God from all forms of heresy and apostasy. They believe the Scripture teaches that they are to try tem, mark them, rebuke them, and have no fellowship with them. They believe they are to withdraw themselves from them and not receive them.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believes there is only one way of salvation for sinners and that is by grace. They believe grace is made possible by the substitutionary death of the Son of God. They believe the son of God is eternally God, was born of the Virgin Mary, assumed human nature, and was without sin, and lived a perfect sinless life. They believe He shed His precious blood on the cross, arose bodily from the grave, and ascended to reign on high.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the Gospel. They believe it is the duty of all to accept them by penitent and obedient faith. They believe the only way to not gain salvation is by the sinner to refuse Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. They believe that all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are justified, their sins are pardoned. They believe the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to them and they are regenerated or born again and are given spiritual life, manifesting repentance and faith. They believe true believers grow and shall preserve to the end.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe sanctification is present in Scripture and that believers have been made partakers of the holiness of Christ. They believe they are progressively sanctified, and that they will be completely sanctified at His glorification. They believe there is not a complete eradication of the old nature in progressive sanctification. They do not speaking in tongues is a sign of either regeneration or sanctification. They do not believe the New Testament gift of tongues is in existence today. They believe the speaking of tongues has ceased.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe Christian baptism and the Lord’s Supper are a memorial, a symbol and a prophecy. They believe Christian baptism is the immersion in water of a believer done in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. They believe Christian baptism is a prerequisite to the membership of the church and a prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper. They believe the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance of the death of Christ in which the members of the Christ by the use of bread and fruit of the vine.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believes the visible church is a congregation of baptized believers that are associated together by a common faith and fellowship in the Gospel. They believe the church observes the ordinances of Christ and is governed by the Word of God. They believe the church seek to extend the Gospel to the ends of the earth, that its only Scriptural officers are the bishops, or pastors, and deacons, and their duties are defined in the Epistles of Timothy and Titus.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day to be kept sacred to spiritual purposes by abstaining from all unnecessary secular labor and recreation, for the commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe the civil government is of divine appointment, for the good order of human society. They believe the civil authorities are to be prayed for, honored and obeyed, except in the things opposed by the Word of God, which reveals the will of Jesus Christ. They believe the church and state should be separate, that the state owing the church protection and full freedom. They believe the state should not impose taxes for the support of any form of religion that a free church is a free state is the Christian ideal.
The New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches believe the Scriptures teach at death the spirit and soul of the believer pass instantly into the presence of Christ and remain in conscious joy unto the resurrection of the body which Christ come for His own. They believe the blessed hope of the believer is the imminent, personal, pre-tribulational, pre-millennial appearance of Christ to rapture the church. They believe the church is the bride. They believe His righteous judgments will then be poured out on an unbelieving world during the Tribulation, the seventieth week of Daniel. They believe the last half of the Tribulation is the Great Tribulation, the climax of this fearful era and the physical return of Jesus Christ to the earth in great glory. They believe Jesus will introduce the Davidic kingdom and Israel will be saved and restored as a nation. They believe satan will be bound and the curse will be lifted from the physical creation. They believe following the Millennium, the Great White Throne judgment will occur, at that time the bodies and souls of the wicked shall be reunited and cast into the Lake of Fire.
Cite Article Source
MLA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne “New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches:.” Becker Bible Studies Library Jan 2006.<https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2761,>.
APA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2006, January) “New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches:.” Becker Bible Studies Library. Retrieved from https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2761,.
Chicago Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2006) “New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches:.” Becker Bible Studies Library (January), https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=2761, (accessed).
