I admire many things about our Baptist friends and neighbors. I appreciate their zeal, their respect for the Bible as the inspired Word of God, and their defense of religious freedom, among other things. Some of their acknowledgements have given me hope that they may one day seek to be true to New Testament teaching in all matters.
Church Succession
In former years, Baptist friends argued that John the Baptist baptized Jesus and that made him a Baptist, therefore, the first church was a Baptist church. Of course, that was a ridiculous argument. According to that logic, when a mechanic worked on my car that made me a mechanic, which I can assure you, I am not! John was called the Baptist because he baptized people.
This view of Baptist church succession was set forth in a book published by G.H. Orchard in 1838 entitled, ‘A Concise History of Baptists.’ In attempting to show that Baptists had experienced a continuous existence from the days of John the Baptist until his time, he concluded that all those groups that dissented from Roman Catholicism were Baptists! Walter B. Shurden, in a book about Baptists and their controversies entitled ‘Not a Silent People’, states:
“The popularizer of Baptist successionism in America was J.R. Graves, a man who may have had more lasting influence on Southern Baptists than any other single individual in our 125 year history.”
Graves died in 1893, but before his death he saw Baptist church succession enthroned by most Southern Baptists as unquestionable orthodoxy. It was the only ‘right’ thing to believe.” Apparently the prevailing view among Baptists was that they could “rattle the chain all the way back to John the Baptist.” They thought, as Shurden said, that “to prove that you are the oldest is to prove that you are the ‘onliest.” But in 1880, H.H. Whitsitt, professor and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, wrote some articles challenging such claims. According to Shurden, Whitsitt argued:
“…Baptists began in 1641 when they recovered the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion in England and that it is historically inaccurate to trace the Baptist denomination back beyond that date.”
Shurden quotes W. Morgan Patterson, a contemporary Baptist historian, who said that Whitsitt:
“arrived at these conclusions after a thorough sifting of the primary sources and through the application of critical methodology.”
Shurden very candidly states:
“Southern Baptists are learning gradually that successionism is neither historically demonstrable nor theologically necessary. We cannot prove it nor do we need to do so. Valid church life is not based upon historical lineage but upon adherence to the Bible.”
We commend our Baptist friends for their honest acknowledgment of past errors in this respect.
Remission of Sins
Another error that some Baptist preachers still maintain is that alien sinners are saved before and without baptism. When others point out to them that on the day of Pentecost, Peter commanded sinners to “repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission (or forgiveness) of sins, they argue that “for” in that verse means “because of.”
They argue that it is like saying, “A man was put in jail for stealing,” in other words, because of stealing. Therefore, they say, men should be baptized because of the forgiveness of sins.
There are several reasons why that argument does not work. A very simple one is that the command to be baptized is joined to the word “repent.” That means whatever baptism is “for” is also what repentance is “for.” Thus, if we are baptized because of the remission of sins, we also repent because our sins are remitted. In that case, a sinner would be saved before and without either baptism or repentance. But, the word translated “for” can have another meaning and does have that meaning in Acts 2:38. Someone might say, “A man went to the store for a loaf of bread,” that is, in order to obtain a loaf of bread. In the same way, we are baptized in order to obtain remission or forgiveness of sins.
The Greek word “eis” translated “for” always looks forward in the New Testament. Some Baptist scholars have been honest enough to acknowledge that. J.W. Willimarth, a Baptist scholar of unquestioned credentials and holder of D.D. and LL.D degrees, wrote in the Baptist Quarterly, July 1877, pp. 304, 305:
“We are gravely told that if we render eis in Acts 2:38 in order to, we give up the battle, and must forthwith become Campbellites; whereas if we translate it on account of or in token of it will yet be possible for us to remain Baptists.”
He continues:
“Such methods of interpretation are unworthy of Christian scholars. It is our business, simply and honestly, to ascertain the exact meaning of the inspired originals, as the sacred penman intended to convey it to the mind of the contemporary reader. Away with the question:” What ought Peter to have said in the interest of orthodoxy?” The real question is: “What did Peter say, and what did he mean, when he spoke on the Day of Pentecost, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?”
Now, read his conclusion:
“The truth will suffer nothing by giving to eis its true signification. When Campbellites translate in order to in Acts 2:38 they translate correctly. Is a translation false because Campbellites endorse it?” (I am not a Campbellite, but whoever they are, I agree with them on Acts 2:38.)
H.B. Hackett, Professor of Biblical Literature and Interpretation in Newton Theological Institution and one of the greatest scholars the Baptist Church has produced, wrote in his commentary on Acts 2:38, p.54:
“In order to the forgiveness of sins (Matt. xxvi. 28; Luke iii. 3) we connect naturally with both the preceding verbs. This clause states the motive or object which should, induce them to repent and be baptized. It enforces the entire exhortation, not one part of it to the exclusion of the other,”
Edgar J. Goodspeed, another Baptist, in his translation of the New Testament renders Acts 2:38 thus:
You must repent, and every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, in order to have your sins forgiven.”
When he was questioned about the lack of Baptist orthodoxy in his translation, he is quoted as saying: “I am first a Greek scholar, and then a theologian.” Our Baptist friends teach salvation by faith only, but as we can see, some of their scholars are honest enough to admit that baptism must be for, that is, unto, or in order to the remission of sins.
– Johnny Elmore