What is a Reformed Baptist Church?
Jan 20th, 2010 by drbc
II. Preaching
Secondly, Reformed Baptist believe in the pre-eminence of the preaching of the Word of God. We believe that the preaching of the Bible must have the central place in our services. We believe that nothing can or should take the place of the preaching of the Word!
Our conviction is that the church of Christ has suffered because she has downgraded the preaching of the Word. We believe that seminaries and Bible Colleges ought to be pre-eminently places where preachers are produced and encouraged. We believe that God’s people everywhere ought to be encouraged to pray that God would endow men with gifts of preaching, and that he would give to His churches preachers, great preachers, many preachers. We believe that there is a need in the churches of Christ for a fresh realization of the importance of the preaching of the Word of God, and that young men ought to be encouraged to study theology, church history and the sermons of great preachers of the past; that they ought to work hard to become good preachers of the Bible.
III. The Doctrines of Grace
Thirdly, Reformed Baptists unashamedly declare their belief in those doctrines which are sometimes called the doctrines of grace. By this expression we mean in particular the doctrines of total depravity, unconditional election, definite atonement, effectual calling, and the perseverance of the saints. We rejoice in those glorious truths which uphold the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men, and which so gloriously affirm the great central reality that salvation is all of grace, and that salvation is of the Lord!
We rejoice that the doctrines of grace are clearly set forth in the Second London Confession of Faith of 1689, and in many other historic Baptist creeds. We note that in 1861 when Charles Spurgeon opened the great Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, that he celebrated the occasion by having sermons preached by esteemed guests on each of those distinctive doctrines. And yet it is not because Spurgeon, or any other Baptist preached these doctrines that we believe them. It is not just because these doctrines are found in the historic Baptist creeds, though we rejoice that that is the case, but it is because the doctrines are so clearly presented in the Holy Scriptures that we believe them.
We recognize that we live in an age when these great fundamental truths are ignored, and even blatantly denied by many professing the name “evangelical” and the name “Baptist.” We know that they are unpopular truths, but truth they are, and we receive them and rejoice in them.
We would like to emphasize also that we not only believe them but we further believe that they ought to be clearly preached and taught from the pulpit! We have a tragic situation today when men in the pulpits say that they believe the doctrines of grace but they refuse to preach and teach them to their people.
The result is that the churches are full of people uninstructed in the great truths of the Scriptures (and of the historic Baptist faith), and these people then imbibe the very opposite doctrines — which they easily receive over the radio and via religious periodicals. Often when a man comes into such a congregation and preaches the truths of grace, uproar and opposition ensue. This is tragic, but common. We believe that our day needs the doctrines of grace, and that our people need to be instructed in them.
