Historically, Baptists have been Baptist not out of blind denominational loyalty but because of their commitment to what they saw as biblical teaching on the doctrine of the church. That doctrine has been central to Baptist distinctives.

– John Hammett

John Hammett rightly points out that Baptist distinctives involve the doctrine of the church, because we otherwise share much in common with other Protestants. For this reason, both General and Particular Baptists in the 17^th century positioned themselves as Baptist Protestants who aimed to reform worship through a believer’s church.

The General Baptist Thomas Monck, for example, published the Orthodox Creed in 1679 which explicitly calls itself a “Protestant Confession.” He saw General Baptist congregations as Protestants who aimed to reform the church according to Baptist principles.

Thomas Grantham, possibly the greatest General Baptist theologian of the 17^th century, wrote in his Christianismus Primitivus (Primitive Christianity) that Baptists affirmed the mainstay of Protestant thought, even affirming the Apostles’ Creed alongside the Nicene Creed as evidence (Thomas Monck’s Orthodox Creed likewise appends all three ecumenical creeds: the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian).

Today, the Free Will Baptist Handbook calls Grantham “the most outstanding leader of the English General Baptists during the middle and later 1600s,” and notes that he delivered the 1660 Standard Confession of General Baptists to King Charles II in July of that same year. This confession would be the most popular General Baptist Confession and “was used by the Free Will Baptists in the American South until 1812.”^[1] And even then, it remains in revised form a central confessional document for Free Will Baptists called the 1812 Former Articles.

The Particular Baptists likewise demonstrated deep continuity with Protestantism. Both the First and Second London Baptist Confessions (1644/46 and 1677/89) position Baptists as virtually the same in theology and practice as other Protestants except on the key issue of a believer’s church, which entails both congregationalism and church discipline.^[2]

So when asking the question about what Baptists believe, we might say they believe just about everything other Protestants do. But doing so would be to bypass what makes Baptist thought distinctive. So let me try to define what Baptists believe in common with Protestants, and then point out our distinctives which we can summarize as the doctrines of (1) a believer’s church, (2) believer’s baptism, and, because of the prior two points, (3) a congregation of visible saints in association with one another.

What Baptists Believe (And Practice)

In the twentieth century, one popular way to explain what Baptists believe and practice was the acronym B.A.P.T.I.S.T.^[3]

Believer’s baptism

Autonomy of the local congregation within the associational network

Primacy of Scripture

True believers only in the church

Individual competency and believer priesthood

Separation of church and state

Two ordinances

This simple acronym beautifully summarizes key beliefs we hold dear. But there are two liabilities with this definition. First, some of its points overlap with other Protestants who are not Baptists such as the Primacy of Scripture, two ordinances, and the separation of church and state. I affirm these, and they are good and right. But because of this overlap, the acronym may make it sound like all these beliefs are Baptist alone, which is not accurate.

Second, if this definition includes Baptist distinctives and key Protestant distinctives to show the kind of Protestants Baptists are, then we should add a few more key doctrines: the substitutionary atonement of Christ, justification by faith alone, affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed, and so on. This is the kind of thing General Baptist Thomas Monck does in his 1679 Orthodox Creed, which explicitly defines itself as defining what kind of Protestants Baptists are in the preface.

Given these two liabilities, the B.A.P.T.I.S.T. acronym represents an incredibly useful shorthand for what we believe, but like any teaching tool, it can potentially oversimplify matters. For that reason, I want to talk briefly about how Baptists viewed themselves as Protestants before talking about their unique contribution to Protestant thought and practice, so that we can better appreciate the unique contribution of Baptist thought to Protestantism.

Baptist Protestants

First and most fundamental to Baptist identity is the conviction that God inspired the Bible to direct our life and practice. As Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Baptists affirmed this Scriptural principle, and it meant they sought to order the church according to the Bible’s teaching. This led them to ask how does the Bible speak of baptism? What does it mean to believe in Christ? How should the church be organized?

Second, in Scripture, they affirmed with other Protestants that faith unites us to Christ, and through that union, God justifies us and regenerates us. They saw such teachings in passages like Galatians 3:25–27 and Colossians 2:12:

“But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”

And:

“you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.”

In both places, faith and baptism seem very closely connected. Faith makes us sons of God; and baptism occurs “into Christ” in Galatians 3:27, while burial in baptism and being raised through faith connect to each other in Colossians 2:12.

These kinds of passages made many Baptists realize that faith and baptism have a vital connection, since they unite us to Christ and make us children of God. And this realization called into question the whole idea of infant baptism, baptism apart from faith, which seemed to mean that one only belonged to the visible Church of England, not the invisible body of Christ.

Third, these biblical convictions about faith and baptism into Christ made early Baptists reconsider how the Church of England baptized infants into the church apart from pre-existing faith and how the Church ordered its life. To many early Baptists, it was unbiblical and did not live up to the New Testament pattern of the church.

With all that said, these independent-minded Protestants who became Baptists felt an affinity with 95% of Protestant thought, but through their scriptural convictions about conversion and baptism and the church, they began to push for reform, for a more biblical way of worship. And that leads us to the special contributions of Baptists to Protestant thought.

Baptist Protestants

John Hammett explains, “Historically, Baptists have been Baptist not out of blind denominational loyalty but because of their commitment to what they saw as biblical teaching on the doctrine of the church. That doctrine has been central to Baptist distinctives.” (Foundations, 12).

I agree. Fundamental to being Baptist is our view of the church as a congregation of visible saints, who are baptized into the church at conversion. In prior talks, I have shown how this conviction arose in 17^th century England. But for the moment, I here want to give a simple presentation of Baptist ecclesiology (doctrine of the church).

I have three major points: Baptists hold to believer’s baptism, a believer’s church, and maintain that they are visible saints through their congregational polity and discipline.

First, Believer’s Church (Regenerate Church Membership)

Baptists first and foremost believe that everybody in the church has been saved by faith. Harry Renfree, a former executive minister of the BUWC (now CBCW), wrote a statement of faith in the late 1960s for the BUWC. In it, he stated, “The Church is made up of those who have been regenerated through the Holy Spirit after repentance and the conscious acceptance by faith of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.”

This basic conviction goes back to the early Baptists who realized that the New Testament describes the church as made up of only believers. They traced the accounts in Acts, for example, and noted a pattern that showed “that conversion is before identification with the church.”^[4]

This pattern meant that a church should not have members in it who are baptized apart from faith (i.e., infants). Consider how the first Baptist Confession, which Thomas Helwys wrote in 1611, defines the church:

“The church of Christ is a company of faithful people (1 Cor 1:2; Eph 1:1) separated from the world by the word and Spirit of God (2 Cor 6:17), being knit together unto the Lord and one another by Baptism (1 Cor 12:13) upon their own confession of faith (Acts 8:37) and sin (Matt 3:6)” (Art. 10; I modernized the English).

The many hundreds of Baptist confessions that followed Helwys all recount some similar principle: the church is comprised of believers.

For example, article 15 of the Free Will Baptist Treatise affirms regenerate church membership for both local congregations and the whole Church:

“A Christian Church is an organized body of believers in Christ who statedly assemble to worship God, and who sustain the ordinances of the Gospel according to the Scriptures. Believers in Christ are admitted to this church on giving evidence of faith in Christ, obtaining consent of the body, being baptized, and receiving the right hand of fellowship.

The Church of God, or members of the body of Christ, is the whole body of Christians throughout the whole world, and none but the regenerate are its members.”^[5]

Again, note the emphases on believers in Christ and regenerate church membership.

Baptists today also point to Jesus inaugurating the New Covenant in his blood. According to Jeremiah 31:31–34, part of what makes the new covenant new is that everyone will know the Lord: “no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer 31:34).

That seems to be the exact pattern we see in the New Testament and the New Covenant church described in it. The apostolic writings show over and over that people first convert and then are identified as part of the church. So Peter says in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Repentance comes first, then follows baptism. Everyone in the church has repented, converted.

Regenerate church membership and church covenants

In order to promote or support a regenerate church membership, Baptists have used two instruments.

First, Baptists formed church covenants that each congregation agrees to; they mostly centred on the moral life or how Christians ought to love one another. Second, Baptist churches practiced church discipline. Both of these are important implications of a regenerate church membership or a believer’s church.

According to the authors of The Baptist Story, “Until the early twentieth century, to join a Baptist church meant to voluntarily embrace the church’s covenant as a general guide for life and godliness. Individually, each member covenanted with the wider body. Corporately, the whole body covenanted with Christ.”^[6] By covenanting together, congregations could hold each other accountable to a Christian way of life, thus promoting Christian virtue and protecting the congregation.

One of the most popular American Baptist covenants first appeared in J. Newton Brown’s The Baptist Church Manual (1853):

Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour; and, on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, we do now, in the presence of God, angels, and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another, as one body in Christ.

We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk together in Christian love; to strive for the advancement of this church, in knowledge, holiness, and comfort; to promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines; to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all nations.

We also engage to maintain family and secret devotion; to religiously educate our children; to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances; to walk circumspectly in the world; to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment; to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger; to abstain from the sale and use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Saviour.

We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember each other in prayer; to aid each other in sickness and distress; to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and courtesy in speech; to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation, and mindful of the rules of our Saviour, to secure it without delay.

We moreover engage, that when we remove from this place, we will as soon as possible unite with some other church, where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant, and the principles of God’s Word.

These covenants were voluntary but had some teeth to them. If someone did not fulfill the covenant, members could ask them why. And eventually, if someone simply refused, then church discipline could occur.

Regenerate church membership and church discipline

That is the second implication of a regenerate church membership: church discipline. According to the authors of The Baptist Story:

“Church discipline safeguards regenerate church membership by protecting sound doctrine and promoting godly living. Church discipline is intended to bring about one of two results in the disciplined individual: conviction and repentance in the case of a rebellious but authentic believer or awakening to the gospel in the case of a false professor of Christianity. Church discipline is intended to be redemptive, not punitive. For the wider church, discipline protects the purity of the congregation.”^[7]

Baptists saw Jesus’s word in Matthew 18:15–20 or Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 5:1–13 and 2 Corinthians 2:5–11 as commanding that congregations practice church discipline. Language like “tell it to the church” or “expel him from your midst” strongly implied that congregations must do the heavy lifting of church discipline. At one level this may sound harsh, but do remember whenever we see in the news a Christian in power or otherwise who assaults, harms, or defrauds people how angry we are. Well, God commands us in the Bible to deal with sin in our midst to protect his little ones from harm.

In short, Baptists maintain that the church is for believers only, who are regenerate. The logical question then is: how do Baptists understand believer’s baptism then?

Second, Believer’s Baptism

The reason why Baptists baptize believers (not infants) is because the Bible teaches that through faith, baptism incorporates us into the body of Christ, the church. And so faith and baptism are a pair; baptism and faith comprise one reality—that we have been united to Christ.

And this explains why Baptists do not baptize infants. The New Testament never commands infant baptism or shows an infant being baptized. And New Testament baptisms involve someone converting first, then being baptized.

Acts

The Book of Acts illustrates this principle well. For example, Acts 8:12 records, “when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” The order here begins with hearing the Gospel, then receiving baptism.

Just a little later in the same chapter, Philip explains the Gospel of Jesus to the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:35). Then the Ethiopian asked, “Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” (Acts 8:36). And nothing prevented it; so he was. The Gospel preached to the Ethiopian precedes his baptism.

Interestingly, some English versions skip verse 37 because they believe it may not be original to the text, although it may very well be. In any case, it shows Philip answering in this way, “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” That faith in the Gospel precedes baptism. No matter how we think of verse 37, this is just one of many examples that show the priority of faith in the Gospel for baptism.

Jesus

Another key passage has to do with Jesus in his Great Commission to the apostles. The Lord speaks of making disciples by baptizing them. And the implication here is that becoming a disciple includes baptism. Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19–20).

Paul

Paul’s theology of baptism similarly shows both faith and baptism as uniting us to Christ, which has led Baptists to maintain an important distinction: faith describes the inward reality that water baptism visualizes.

Of water baptism, Paul speaks of, “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:3). In Galatians 3:27, Paul can say, “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Note the language of being baptized into Christ.

That makes us ask the next question: How can one be baptized into Christ and clothed with him, unless one had already been united to Christ by faith?

Well, Paul says in various places that faith too unites us to Christ:

Galatians 3:26–28: “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

Ephesians 3:17: “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

Philippians 3:8–9: Paul desires to “gain Christ and be found in him,” possessing righteousness “through faith in Christ.”

Colossians 2:12: Believers have been buried with Christ in baptism and “raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God.”

Putting these together, both faith and baptism are said to unite us to Christ. Baptists maintain that faith is obviously an internal act of union with Christ while water baptism is external. Using the language of Augustine, we maintain that baptism signifies the reality that we have died with Christ and will rise with him by faith.

We could go on for some time. But suffice it to say, the testimony of the New Testament is that after disciples trust in Christ, they are baptized into Christ.

Common objections

Some object by saying that the New Covenant is like the Old Covenant in which everyone in Israel was circumcised. So why not have everyone baptized? Because the New Covenant is a better covenant, and Jeremiah 31:34 describes it as being better partly because everyone in it knows the Lord. Besides, the New Covenant is New, and it thus does not require an exact parallel to the Old Covenant.

Others point out that in Acts whole households were baptized. The implication is that infants were. Perhaps, but the texts do not explicitly tell us that; and every other passage illustrates a believer being baptized. So it seems that we should not let the silence of household passages speak louder than the shouts of believer’s baptism in Scripture.

Still others think that infants should be baptized, because Paul calls children of believing parents holy in 1 Corinthians 7:14. They take this to mean the child should be baptized. But in the very same verse, Paul calls unbelieving spouses “holy” because of the believing spouse. But nobody thinks the unbelieving spouse is a baptized person!

They are holy because someone holy lives in the household. The same is true for children of believing parents. Hence, Baptists should think that their children are holy, dedicated to God, even if they have not yet been baptized. They have a great advantage!^[8]

I do not want to get bogged down on the details, but suffice it to say, Baptists are Baptists because they believe the Bible plainly speaks in this way.

Third, Baptists Maintain a Congregationalism of Visible Saints

Baptists are congregational partly because they believed the Established Church in England did not have the authority to impose forms of worship on parish churches. So negatively, the origins of Baptist thought start with rejecting unbiblical patterns of church government; in this case, a national church that legally required patterns of worship. Positively, this led many early Baptists to ask, what does the Bible then say about the church?

So regularly, Baptist authors will speak about the New Testament teaching of the church. They noticed that the Letters and Acts of the Apostles showed churches as congregations with local responsibility to mind their own affairs. Yes, the New Testament also speaks about congregations being obliged to support each other (e.g., Rom 15:27; cf. Acts 15). And that would be reflected in congregations associating together around statements of faith which identify their common beliefs and practices in conscious imitation of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.

Among passages in the Bible, Matthew 18:15–20 played an important role in this congregational polity, because Jesus here speaks of church discipline as a congregational activity:

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 18 “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Jesus does not say take the matter to a presbytery or a bishop, but rather to speak to the church. And this implied to many that congregations have a role in maintaining the holiness of a congregation. In other words, it is not a pastor or bishop’s job—but everyone’s.

Paul likewise points to the role of the congregation in 1 Corinthians 5 when it comes to another case of church discipline. A man was sleeping with his step-mother, and Paul says:

“When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:4–5).

Notice here that the word “you” is plural in Greek, meaning, that he is addressing the Corinthian church. We know this as well since Paul specifies, “When you are assembled” as the church. And here, the expectation is that the assembly will hand this man over to Satan. When speaking about another discipline case, Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:6 mentions, “this punishment by the majority.” Well again, it is the majority, that is, the assembled congregation that carries out church discipline.

One last note. Without ignoring all the metaphors in Scripture about the church, Baptists also looked particularly at the word church, which translates the Greek word ekklesia, and noticed that it often describes two realities: first, the universal church, the body of Christ, that comprises all believers across space and time; and second, a particular congregation in one place. So even the biblical word church pointed to a congregational identity.

When it comes to appointing leaders, the New Testament is less clear. Paul or his associates (Barnabas, Titus) often appoint elders. At the same time, we have passages like Acts 6:3 which narrates how the Jerusalem church picked leaders from among themselves. Evidence also shows that elders seem involved in appointments (1 Tim 4:14). Since Paul was an apostle with unique authority, we probably need to be cautious about using him as an example for how most congregations should practically appoint elders and deacons.

Here, Baptists have allowed some flexibility in the role of the congregation and the appointing of pastors. Some advocate for laying on of hands of leaders; others emphasize how elders nominate pastors whom congregations affirm. And much more besides. Congregationalists do not see biblical evidence that a bishop alone can appoint pastors for congregations. So they believed that congregations had a role.

Next, Baptists held that congregations were a covenanted community, bound together by voluntary agreement around a common faith and practice. So churches wrote up constitutions with a covenant within them. These covenants reinforced the whole church as a company of visible saints, a holy priesthood.

Lastly, Baptists used Statements of Faith or associational confessions of faith to define the boundaries of association with other congregations. And they modelled these associations after the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 or Paul’s statements about congregations being duty-bound to each other in Romans 15 and really everywhere in the New Testament (e.g., “love one another,” “bear each other’s burdens,” etc.).

Fourth, numerous implications: religious liberty, soul liberty, associationism and so on.

Based on the above three principles: a believer’s church, believer’s baptism, and congregational polity in associations, Baptists have inferred that churches should have the liberty or freedom to worship according to New Testament principles. For this reason, they generally advocate for religious freedom.

Second, that conversion precedes church membership means individuals have the freedom and competency to believe for themselves. In other words, soul competency or soul liberty mattered for Baptists. Generally, we might call this a species of the Protestant teaching of the universal priesthood of believers.

Third, Baptist polity placed authority in congregations and their officers, but it did not mean that each church was fully autonomous. Baptists read the various biblical verses on church unity and knew that they had to live together, especially Acts 15. So they developed the doctrine of voluntary associations of congregations.

Beginning in 1644 with the London Baptist Confession, Baptists across England began associating together through Statements of Faith. For example, General Baptists formed an association around 1654 and produced the Standard Confession in 1660, which became the most common confession for General Baptists and Free Will Baptists in America.

Conclusion

In short, Baptists are Protestants who believe in a regenerate church membership, believer’s Baptism, and congregationalism in association with other congregations. They hold these beliefs because the New Testament does. That is, Baptists hold out these beliefs to other Protestant friends as a resource to renew the worship of the church.

^[1] J. Matthew Pinson, A Free Will Baptist Handbook: Heritage, Beliefs, and Ministries (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications, 1998), 5.

^[2] I make this argument more fully in Wyatt Graham, “You Can Be Deep in History and Remain Baptist,” September 4, 2025, https://www.wyattgraham.com/p/you-can-be-deep-in-history-and-remain. In short, however, the 2LBF is basically the Westminster Confession of Faith, edited to include believer’s baptism. The 1LBF models itself after the True Confession.

^[3] My predecessor at Carey Theological College, Stanley Grenz, uses it in his popular The Baptist Congregation, 82.

^[4] Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, and Michael A.G. Haykin, The Baptist Story, 2^nd ed. (B&H Academic, 2025), 20.

^[5] Pinson, Free Will Baptist Handbook, 158.

^[6] The Baptist Story, 22.

^[7] The Baptist Story, 22.

^[8] I develop this argument in Wyatt Graham, “Should We Treat Our Children like Unbelievers?,” October 17, 2020, https://www.wyattgraham.com/p/should-we-treat-our-children-like-unbelievers.

Probably in the late 1960s, Harry Renfree, then Executive Minister of the Baptist Union of Western Canada (BUWC), published a pamphlet through the Union that functions as a confession of faith. It was likely written to explain the Ten Baptist Principles that the BUWC added to its constitution in 1962.

The first three paragraphs explain that Baptists are not credal, in that they do not require subscription to a creed; they are confessional, in that they willingly share confessions of faith. Part of this has to do with what a voluntary association is. Congregations voluntarily associate around forms of unity, usually a statement of faith.

Here are his words:

“Webster defines ‘creed’ as ‘an authoritative summary of the essential points comprising a certain belief’.

“In this sense Baptists are not ‘credal’, for they have not required a re-statement of God’s Word; they have allowed the Scriptures to speak for themselves.

“On the other hand, when confronted with ‘What do you believe?’, Baptists have been more than willing to share a ‘Confession of Faith’ or to state some of those beliefs commonly held.

“The following is such a statement, scripturally-based.”

Afterwards, he confesses the faith in six major parts: Scripture, Christ, the Church, the Ordinances, the universal priesthood, and religious liberty. One can probably detect E. Y. Mullins in his last point. Compared to earlier confessions in Western Canada, it’s fascinating that there is no affirmation of the Trinity.

Subscribe now

Here is the text below:

Cover: what baptists believe

Webster defines “creed” as “an authoritative summary of the essential points comprising a certain belief”.

In this sense Baptists are not “credal”, for they have not required a re-statement of God’s Word; they have allowed the Scriptures to speak for themselves.

On the other hand, when confronted with “What do you believe?”, Baptists have been more than willing to share a “Confession of Faith” or to state some of those beliefs commonly held.

The following is such a statement, scripturally-based.

1. Centrality of the Scriptures

More than any, Baptists have been known as “people of the Book”. This Bible is the guide-book, the complete creed, the authoritative, sufficient rule of faith and practice. Hence, what Baptists believe about life and death, beginning and ending, time and eternity, meaning and purpose, are found in the Scriptures.

Inspired - Of this Book the Apostle Paul writes positively, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the faith and correcting error, for resetting the direction of a man’s life and training him in good living. The scriptures are the comprehensive equipment of the man of God, and fit him fully for all branches of his work” (2 Tim. 3:16,17 Phillips). The Apostle Peter adds “But you must understand this at the outset, that no prophecy of scripture arose from an individual’s interpretation of the truth. No prophecy came because a man wanted it to: men of God spoke because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20, 21 Phillips).

Verified - The Scriptures, tested by time and experience, have proved to be an infallible guide, as hosts of Christians have testified. “Your word is the truth”, writes one Apostle (Jn. 17:17 Phillips). Paul asserts “It is in truth the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13 KJV). Many centuries before, the Psalmist put it this way: “The law of the Lord is perfect . . . the testimony of the Lord is sure” (Ps. 19:7 KJV). The “ancient word” is also self-validating, as Jesus claimed Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Himself (Luke 4:21). “The Scripture”, He insisted on another occasion, “cannot be broken” (John 10:35 KJV).

Imperishable - This Word is the eternal Truth, as emphasized so strikingly by Christ: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35 KJV).

Focus - The Bible clearly portrays the tragic need of sinful men and points as clearly to the remedy. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is its focus. “Those here written have been recorded in order that you may hold the faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this faith you may possess eternal life by His name” (John 21:31 NEB).

2. The Lordship of Jesus Christ

“JESUS IS LORD”. These words - often in banner headline in more than one language - catch the eye at Baptist World Alliance gatherings; they grace the insignia of the Baptist Federation of Canada. They form a kind of Baptist motto, a guiding principle for all of life.

The concept introduced Jesus through the angel’s word to the shepherds on the hills surrounding Bethlehem: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11 KJV). Its focus continues throughout the New Testament. In his stirring sermon at Pentecost Peter cried: “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Master” (Acts 2:36 KJV). A convinced Thomas, after the Master’s resurrection, worshipped Him: “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28 KJV).

Paul, looking beyond time to eternity, sees the Lord Jesus as the very meaning and summit of history: “He (God) purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfilment in Him” (Eph. 1:9,10 Phillips).

In the Book of Revelation John envisions Him as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16 KJV), and the final verse of the Bible is a prayer for His benediction: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all” (Rev. 22:21 KJV).

3. The Nature of the Church

“Regenerate church membership” is the usual term descriptive of Baptists’ conception of the Church, a view in which Baptists are distinctive.

Baptists do not believe that the Church is composed of potential believers, nor believers-by-proxy. They do not hold that being born within a Covenant group is adequate for membership, nor does baptismal water make this possible, whether the act is performed voluntarily or involuntarily.

The Church is made up of those who have been regenerated through the Holy Spirit after repentance and the conscious acceptance by faith of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. These, ‘the people of God’, alone make up the Church of Christ, described by Peter as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. You are now the people of God, who were once not his people; outside his mercy once, you have now received his mercy” (1 Peter 2:9,10 NEB).

These alone are proper candidates for baptism and membership in a local church, which has been aptly described as the “outcrop” of the Church of Christ - outcrop being a geological term for the part of a rock formation that appears on the surface, similar in nature to the main body.

These members of the “household of God”, the Church, have exchanged their former situation as “utter strangers to God’s chosen community . . . nothing to look forward to and no God to whom you could turn”, now “are no longer outsiders or aliens, but fellow citizens with every other Christian” (Eph. 2:12,19 Phillips).

Of that household, the Church, Jesus Christ is “the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20 KJV). Changing the figure from that of a building to the human frame, the Apostle writes elsewhere: “He (Jesus) is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:18 KJV). To the Ephesian elders he had summoned to meet him at Miletus, Paul said: “Take heed to feed the flock . . . the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28 KJV).

All of this is consistent with the statement of Jesus Himself: “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Even additions to the Church are made by Him (see Acts 2:47, 5:14, 11:24).

The Church, then, is “gathered”, not “inclusive”, containing only those gathered by Christ out of the world. Its membership is “separated” rather than “mixed”, called by the Master from lost humanity. It is not thereby composed of “better” people, but sinners saved by grace. It is not a human institution. “It is, remember, the Church of the living God, the pillar and the foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15 Phillips).

4. The Ordinances

Such Ordinances - acts “ordained” or commanded by Christ for the use of His Church - are but two, Baptists believe - Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Baptism

Here again Baptists uphold what is believed to be clear New Testament teaching, although the practice of many other Christians differs. Consistent with the conception of the nature of the Church, being composed alone of believers as enunciated above, Baptists declare that the right, privilege, and duty to be baptized is for believers only.

As spiritual heirs of Anabaptist and other “Free Church” movements in Europe, Baptists, as such, began to take their place on the world scene at the beginning of the 17th Century. Driven out of England in 1607 by persecution, John Smyth established in Holland what is recognized by many historians as the first Baptist Church. Smyth had initially sought fellowship with another denomination in Amsterdam, only to have his name removed from its roll when he published a tract in favour of believer’s baptism and denying infant baptism. He was charged with the murder of the souls of infants by depriving them of the visible means of salvation.

Over 350 years later, the theological climate is not so bitter. Biblical scholars of many persuasions openly agree that the New Testament position is that of believer’s baptism although, as noted, the practice of many denominations remains unaltered.

The command of Jesus to baptize is crystal clear, as expressed in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19). He was Himself baptized by John the Baptist as an example although John at the time protested that Jesus should be the one baptizing him. It was on that holy occasion, as the Master came up out of the water, that the voice of God was heard, placing His seal of approval upon His Son (Mk. 1:9-11).

The scriptural directions are plain, as Peter exhorted in his sermon at Pentecost: “Repent, and be baptized” (Acts 2:38 KJV) - the logical order of repentance and faith, then the symbolic witness. The testimony of the Ethiopian treasurer is typical. When Philip, by his presentation of the Gospel had convinced him, the Eunuch asked his teacher: “Here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Philip’s reply was equally to the point: “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.” The response was immediate: “And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:36-38 KJV). He then was baptized.

The mode - immersion - is not only understood clearly from the Greek word corresponding to the English “baptize”, but it portrays graphically the meaning of the symbolic act. As Paul put it, “We are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4 KJV; see also Col. 2:12). By his baptism the Christian pictures his turning from sin, his union with Christ in death, and his resurrection with Christ to new life.

Of such is the Church composed.

The Lord’s Supper

Like the New Birth, baptism is a one-time commitment. With reference to the second Ordinance, however, Paul writes: “Whenever you eat this bread or drink this cup, you are proclaiming that the Lord has died for you, and you will do that until He comes again” (1 Cor. 11:26 Phillips).

The Lord’s Supper, also instituted by the Master himself, is to be a constant reminder of His broken body and shed blood which resulted in His sacrificial death for mankind. It points back to the Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples in the Upper Room, where Jesus, prior to His crucifixion “took bread and brake it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body”. Similarly, “He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:26-28 KJV).

The classic description of the Ordinance is that found in 1 Cor. 11:23-33. Here the Apostle not only sets down the procedure but he describes the preparation required of the one who would sit down at Jesus’ Table.

Baptists generally have been reluctant to use the word “sacrament” to describe the observance, for this seems to infer a guaranteed blessing from God regardless of the conditions. The Lord’s Supper has been described as a “memorial feast”. It is that, but it may and should be more; to the honest seeker it may well be a means of grace, a time when his Master draws very near.

5. The Priesthood of All Believers

Baptists - again, it is believed, consistently and in accord with Scripture - affirm that the man who, by conscious choice, repents of his sins, is regenerated by the Spirit, accepts the Lordship of Christ in his life and becomes a member of Christ’s Church, is entirely competent to approach God through his Master without any other priestly intermediary. His access to God is clear and direct and no church hierarchy or sacrament can bar his way.

“It is through him” (Jesus) Paul writes, “that both of us now can approach the Father in the one Spirit” (Eph. 2:18 Phillips). “But when you pray”, Jesus said, “go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in a secret place” (Matt. 6:6 NEB). Christians are, added Peter, “an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5 KJV). Jesus said further to His disciples, “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matt. 23:8 KJV).

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”, Paul insists, as he confers with his young co-worker Timothy (1 Tim. 2:5 KJV). “You, like holy priests, can offer these spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5 Phillips).

“Please pray to the Lord for me”, begged Simon, the magician, of Peter (Acts 8:24 Phillips). This, too, is the Christian’s privilege and responsibility - to bring others and their needs before God, themselves carrying out a “priestly” function. “Tremendous power is made available through a good man’s earnest prayer”, adds the Apostle James in his epistle (5:16 Phillips).

6. Religious Liberty

All of these principles point from God to man and all emphasize the ultimate worth of the human person in the eyes of God. He has freedom.

Man is a free individual, free to choose the right or the wrong. He may choose forgiveness or he may remain alienated. He may claim the Lordship of Christ or bar Christ from his life. He may be a member of Christ’s Church or he may refuse. He may share in the Ordinances or pass them by. He may claim his prerogative to approach God or he may insist that there is no place for God in his life.

“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him” (Gen. 5:1 KJV) - this is the story of man’s freedom. Like God he can think, feel, choose and act. Speaking of man’s prerogatives the Psalmist calls out to God, “What is man? . . . Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou has put all things under his feet” (Psalms 8:4,6 KJV).

Man is a free moral agent.

But that freedom carries grave responsibility. The responsibility of liberty is man’s, and that responsibility he cannot deny.

“Responsible” in the dictionary definition means “answerable legally or morally for the discharge of a duty, trust or debt. . . involving accountability or obligation”. This primary meaning of the word has largely been ignored in the late 20th Century. The free man, it is said, “is not accountable to any”.

Not so. As to the privilege of choice, Jesus Himself put the facts very plainly. “He that is not with me is against me” (Matt. 12:30 KJV). This eternal choice one must make - a default is a vote against God. “Every one of us”, Paul insists, “shall give an account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12 KJV). Speaking further of a man’s responsibility, Ezekiel writes: “the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20 KJV).

Freedom and responsibility are the two sides of the most precious coin in man’s possession, the coin of the realm of eternity.

To man’s self-responsibility is added his obligation to others, both in the church and outside. “Am I my brother’s keeper” (Gen. 4:9 KJV) is a question consistently answered in the affirmative, and the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19,20 brings the whole world within the compass of Christ’s claim upon His disciples.

Two corollaries of the concept of liberty of souls are held by Baptists.

A. The Separation of Church and State

This is the term usually utilized, but “A free Church in a free State” is better. Each within its own sphere is held to be competent.

The State does not have the right to coerce the free minds of men by establishing religion or by forcing men to worship or not to worship God. As free moral agents men are at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. . . or to refuse to worship Him. The State, then, should not interfere in the lawful realm of the Church.

Neither should the Church. . . or any part of it. . . seek to impose its will upon the State in the realm of government.

Jesus, asked pointblank, “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” replied: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21 KJV).

“Every Christian ought to obey the civil authorities, for all legitimate authority is derived from God’s authority. . . to oppose authority then is to oppose God” wrote Paul (Rom. 13:1,2 Phillips). “Remind your people to recognize the power of those who seek and bear authority” he added to Titus. “They must obey the laws of the State and be prepared to render what good service they can” (Titus 3:1 Phillips). Peter was equally firm, “Obey every man-made authority for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pet. 2:13 Phillips).

In short, the Christian is to be a good citizen. Indeed, he is a better citizen as a Christian.

On the other hand, should there be a choice in the spiritual realm the decision is clear. Brought by the authorities before the Council charged with teaching in the name of Jesus, the Apostles answered simply “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29 KJV).

B. Democratic Church Government

The second corollary to the concept of soul liberty has to do with government of the Church, beginning with the local congregation. Involved are both freedom and responsibility, independence and interdependence.

Although the New Testament can hardly be said to outline in detail the precise order for present day church operation, the starting point is unquestioned, “Jesus is Lord”. Under His leadership each church member has a position to fill, a task to do, in line with his talents.

In separate epistles Paul confirms such responsibilities devolving upon “apostles”, “prophets”, “evangelists”, “teachers”, “pastors”, etc., and all pointing to the single objective - “the work of the ministry”. (See Eph. 4:11,12; 1 Cor. 12:28-31).

There is an equality in God’s household. “The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all” (Prov. 22:2 KJV). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 KJV).

Just as those equal parts make up the body of Christ, they are ineffective unless working together cooperatively. “So we, being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5 KJV).

So grows the Church of Christ.

Purpose

Among the objects of the Baptist Union included in its Act of Incorporation granted by the Government of Canada, the first is “to promote, maintain and carry on the common work and enterprises of its constituent churches and bodies”.

That “common work” is the continuing task of Western Baptists within the Church of Jesus Christ, for Jesus pointedly urged in one of His parables, “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13 KJV).

God, states the Apostle, “purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ” (Eph. 1:9,10 Phillips). The purpose of Jesus, He Himself clearly enunciated: “I have come that men may have life, and may have it in all its fullness” (John 10:10 NEB).

To share in the spreading of the Good News, offering new life to all . . . to participate in the maturing of the lives of those who respond, this is the dual purpose which covers the whole range of human need.

THE BAPTIST UNION OF WESTERN CANADA

REV. HARRY A. RENFREE, BA, BD, DD

Subscribe now

Baptists may have written more confessions of faith than any other group of Protestants. Associations united around them, individual congregations often wrote their own, and most churches also covenanted together. This was true in the seventeenth century and remains true today, although for a period in the mid-twentieth century, many Baptist churches had local church confessions without necessarily uniting around an explicit statement of faith.

Because I was saved in a Baptist Union of Western Canada church, I want to speak about my home denomination (now called the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada). Within our history, we have had four key denominational texts that defined our faith and ordered our unity as a group of Baptists who were formerly a convention (between 1882 and 1909) before modelling ourselves as a union in 1909 and as an association since 2007.

In what follows, I present in full, with brief commentary, six texts that mark how Baptists in Western Canada have stated their faith: the New Hampshire Confession adopted by the first church (1875), a doctrinal compendium (1884), a list of Baptist principles (1962), the Carey Hall statement (1982), a borrowed pan-evangelical statement (1986), and a denominational identity statement (2022).

Subscribe now

1. The New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833)

John Newton Brown composed the New Hampshire Confession of Faith for the New Hampshire Baptist Convention in 1833. The confession circulated across North America in the Baptist church manuals of Brown (1853) and Pendleton (1867). These manuals contain the eighteen-article form printed here.

On February 7, 1875, the seven members who organized the First Regular Baptist Church in Manitoba at Winnipeg heard Alexander McDonald preach on 1 Corinthians 1:2, “unanimously approved” this Confession as their statement of faith, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper.^[1] Many local churches over the decades would adopt this confession as the local church’s statement of faith.

Declaration of Faith

1. Of the Scriptures

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true centre of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.

2. Of the True God

We believe that there is one, and only one, living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, 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 Ghost; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.

3. Of the Fall of Man

We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse.

4. Of the Way of Salvation

We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace; through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God; who by the appointment of the Father, freely took upon him our nature, yet without sin; honored the divine law by his personal obedience, and by his death made a full atonement for our sins; that having risen from the dead, he is now enthroned in heaven; and uniting in his wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with divine perfections, he is every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate, and an all-sufficient Saviour.

5. Of Justification

We believe that the great gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in him is Justification; that Justification includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s blood; by virtue of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God; that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.

6. Of the Freeness of Salvation

We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.

7. Of Grace in Regeneration

We believe that, in order to be saved, sinners must be regenerated, or born again; that regeneration consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind; that it is effected in a manner above our comprehension by the power of the Holy Spirit, in connection with divine truth, so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the gospel; and that its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance, and faith, and newness of life.

8. Of Repentance and Faith

We believe that Repentance and Faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God; whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication for mercy; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and relying on him alone as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.

9. Of God’s Purpose of Grace

We believe that Election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which he graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners; that being perfectly consistent with the free agency of man, it comprehends all the means in connection with the end; that it is a most glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, being infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable; that it utterly excludes boasting, and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of his free mercy; that it encourages the use of means in the highest degree; that it may be ascertained by its effects in all who truly believe the gospel; that it is the foundation of Christian assurance; and that to ascertain it with regard to ourselves demands and deserves the utmost diligence.

10. Of Sanctification

We believe that Sanctification is the process by which, according to the will of God, we are made partakers of his holiness; that it is a progressive work; that it is begun in regeneration; and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means — especially the Word of God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer.

11. Of the Perseverance of Saints

We believe that such only are real believers as endure unto the end; that their persevering attachment to Christ is the grand mark which distinguishes them from superficial professors; that a special Providence watches over their welfare; and they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

12. Of the Harmony of the Law and the Gospel

We believe that the Law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of his moral government; that it is holy, just, and good; and that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe to fallen men to fulfill its precepts, arises entirely from their love of sin; to deliver them from which, and to restore them through a Mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy Law, is one great end of the Gospel, and of the means of grace connected with the establishment of the visible church.

13. Of a Gospel Church

We believe that a visible Church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the 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 only scriptural officers are Bishops, or Pastors, and Deacons, whose qualifications, claims, and duties are defined in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.

14. Of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

We believe that Christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, into the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost; to show forth, in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, with its effect in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life; that it is prerequisite to the privileges of a Church relation; and to the Lord’s Supper, in which the members of the Church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ; preceded always by solemn self-examination.

15. Of the Christian Sabbath

We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day, or Christian Sabbath; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recreations; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God.

16. Of Civil Government

We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of human society; and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed; except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.

17. Of the Righteous and the Wicked

We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 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.

18. Of the World to Come

We believe that the end of the world is approaching; that at the Last Day Christ will descend from heaven, and raise the dead from the grave to final retribution; that a solemn separation will then take place; that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment, and the righteous to endless joy; and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men in heaven or hell, on principles of righteousness.

2. Article II, Constitution of the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the North-West (1884)

In 1882 Alexander McDonald’s congregation and nine other Baptist Churches formed the Regular Baptist Missionary Convention of Manitoba and the North-West (the North-West Territories, including present-day AB and SK). The Convention on July 12, 1884 adopted the compendium of doctrines directly from the Haldimand Association of Canada West, which had adopted it in 1849.

This compendium descended through two traditions. The first involves a compendia tradition in England which was rooted in the Midland Association’s compendium of 1752. The second roots itself in the Second London Confession (1689), as adopted by the Philadelphia Association (1742) and digested by the Niagara Association of New York (1833). The Convention added one clause of its own: “and who continue in good standing.” The first tradition gave the compendia its form, and thirteen of sixteen BCOQ associations confessed it by 1900. The second gave it theological structure, being a summary of the Second London Baptist Confession.

This compendium was never officially repealed and was known in Western Canada until at least 1939 (and probably much later).^[2]

This Convention shall be composed of such churches only as embrace in substance, the following doctrines:

The Being and Unity of God; the existence of three Equal Persons in the Godhead;

Divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, as the complete and infallible rule of faith and practice;

the depravity and just condemnation of all mankind through the fall of our first parents;

election by grace according to the foreknowledge of God;

the proper Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ;

the self-sufficiency of His atonement through which believers are justified freely by grace;

perseverance of the saints;

the immersion of believers in the name of the Trinity, the only Christian baptism;

the Lord’s Supper, a privilege of baptized believers regularly admitted into fellowship and who continue in good standing in our churches;

the resurrection of the body and general judgment;

the final happiness of the saints, and the misery of the wicked, alike interminable;

the obligations of every intelligent creature to love God supremely, to believe what God says, and to practise what God commands; also

religious observance of the first day in the week.

3. Ten Baptist Principles, Baptist Union of Western Canada Constitution (1962)

The preamble of the Union’s revised constitution was the first denominational statement since 1884.^[3] The constitution included a list of principles of polity and practice rather than a confession of doctrine. The constitution opens with “those great basic principles for which Baptist churches have historically stood”:^[4]

1. The absolute pre-eminence of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord,

2. The supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, as our sufficient rule of faith and practice,

3. The competency of the individual soul in direct approach to God, and the consequent right of private conscience,

4. A regenerate church membership,

5. The immersion of the believer in the ordinance of baptism, in obedience to the command of Christ, as an outward expression of an inward experience of Christ,

6. The democratic principle in the church, under God, with a solemn obligation of majority rule, and the guarantee of equal rights to all and special privileges to none,

7. The independence of the local church, and also its interdependence in associated fellowship with other churches of like faith,

8. The spiritual unity of all believers in Christ,

9. The separation of church and state, while the individual believer relates his Christian convictions to the whole of life,

10. A world-wide program of evangelism in obedience to the commands of Christ.

4. Carey Hall Statement of Faith (1982), used as the CBWC Statement of Faith since 2007

The Carey Hall board adopted a Statement of Faith in 1982. It borrowed the statement of Regent College (itself similar to the World Evangelical Fellowship statement)^[5] with one clause added for Baptist ecclesiology (article 7).

It was the only statement “approved by the Baptist Union” when Jeremy Bell opened the question of a Union-wide statement in 2005. The 2007 Assembly reviewed it, and in lightly revised form it was used thereafter as the Statement of Faith of the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada, though the Assembly minutes record no formal adoption; it received Assembly approval inside the 2022 Identity Statement (text 6 below), which embeds the 2007 form.

The 2007 revisions to the below are: article 1, “The sovereignty, love, and grace of God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit”; article 3, “The value of each human being as created by God. The universal sinfulness of humankind since the fall, which alienates all from God and subjects all to condemnation”; article 8, “…our participation in the resurrection, and the hope of eternal life.”^[6]

We accept wholeheartedly the revelation of God given in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and confess the faith therein set forth. We here explicitly assert the doctrines which we regard as crucial to the understanding and proclamation of the Gospel and to practical Christian living:

1. The sovereignty and grace of God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in creation, providence, revelation, redemption and final judgment.

2. The divine inspiration of Holy Scripture and its consequent entire trustworthiness and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

3. The universal sinfulness and guilt of human nature since the fall, making man subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.

4. The full deity and humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, whose substitutionary sacrifice is the sole ground of redemption from the guilt, penalty and power of sin.

5. The justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone in Christ crucified and risen from the dead.

6. The illuminating, regenerating, indwelling and sanctifying work of God, the Holy Spirit, in the believer.

7. The church as set forth in the New Testament and understood historically by the Baptist Community.

8. The expectation of the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

5. Statement of Faith of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, affirmed by the BUWC (1986)

The EFC statement of faith circulated to BUWC churches along with executive minister Douglas Moffat’s supplement of November 1985. At that year’s assembly in Kelowna, it was debated and later affirmed at the Calgary Assembly of 1986. The assembly voted 229 to 64 to join the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

This statement followed the BUWC’s break up with the United Church of Canada (1961–65) and the Canadian Council of Churches (1980). Both groups were perceived as liberal by the BUWC.

The EFC statement was then meant to cement the evangelical nature of the BUWC. It was Pan-evangelical by design, and it therefore says nothing of baptism, the ordinances, church order or election. It may be that the Assembly felt that local churches would reproduce these beliefs in their local church’s statement of faith and covenant.

The 1985 wording is reproduced below, although the EFC has since lightly revised it.^[7]

1. The Holy Scriptures, as originally given by God, divinely inspired, infallible, entirely trustworthy, and the only supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

2. One God, eternally existent in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3. Our Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, His virgin birth, His sinless human life, His divine miracles, His bodily resurrection, His ascension, His mediatorial work, and His personal return in power and glory.

4. The salvation of lost and sinful man through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith apart from works, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

5. The Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the believer is enabled to live a holy life, to witness and work for the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. The unity in the Spirit of all true believers, the Church, the Body of Christ.

7. The resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life, and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

6. Identity Statement of the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada (2022)

The Canadian Baptists of Western Canada approved an Identity Statement that includes a Statement of Faith at its Assembly in Calgary in May 2022. It sets the Statement of Faith (text 4, in its 2007 form) inside a description of Baptist practice (priesthood of all believers, the two ordinances, congregational governance, association, church and state, marriage and mission) and is the first Western Canadian denominational text since 1884 to confess doctrine and practice together.^[8]

The BUWC renamed itself as the CBWC in 2007 to align with Canadian Baptist Ministries and the other Canadian Baptist regions and apparently saw itself as an Association, no longer a Union of BC and Prairie Baptists as it had in 1909.

The text reads:

The Canadian Baptists of Western Canada (CBWC) is a voluntary association of independent Baptist churches gathered under the Lordship of Jesus Christ as revealed through Scripture. As a Spirit-led, multicultural community, we assemble to seek the Father’s will together in unity of faith and to celebrate God’s past, present and future work among us and through us. Churches choose to associate for the purpose of enhancing our local and global participation in this work of the triune God, as disciples of Christ in word and deed, thus engaging in God’s mission in the world.

Standing within the historic orthodox understanding of church and Scripture, as Baptists in name and heritage, we affirm the following statements of faith and practice. They are the core of our identity and are expressed in our policies, practices, and Assembly Resolutions (esp. 1959, 1987, 1988, 2003, 2011, 2015, 2017). Scripture passages referenced are illustrative, not comprehensive.

Statement of Faith

The Canadian Baptists of Western Canada accept wholeheartedly the revelation of God given in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and confess the faith therein set forth. We here explicitly assert the doctrines which we regard as crucial to the understanding and proclamation of the Gospel and to practical Christian living:

1. The sovereignty, love, and grace of God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit in creation, providence, revelation, redemption and final judgment.

2. The divine inspiration of Holy Scripture and its entire trustworthiness and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

3. The value of each human being as created by God. The universal sinfulness of humankind since the fall, which alienates all from God and subjects all to condemnation.

4. The full deity and humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, whose substitutionary sacrifice is the sole ground of redemption from the guilt, penalty and power of sin.

5. The justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone in Christ crucified and risen from the dead.

6. The illuminating, regenerating, indwelling and sanctifying work of God, the Holy Spirit, in the believer.

7. The church as set forth in the New Testament and understood historically by the Baptist community.

8. The expectation of the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ, our participation in the resurrection, and the hope of eternal life.

Priesthood of All Believers

Loved by God and created in God’s own image, each one of us is able to meet with God through the atoning work of Christ. As male and female, equally called, the churches of the CBWC honor each person’s responsibility to exercise their giftedness in Christ’s body, the church, and to minister to each other as a ‘priesthood of all believers.’ With Christ as our Lord, each person is to regard others with the same humility that Christ exemplified in the cross. We live in voluntary submission to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Acts 6:1–7; 15:22–35; 17:10–12; Rom 12; 1 Cor 12:1–31; Eph 4; Phil 2:1–18; Heb 4:14–16; 10:19–25; 1 Pet 2:1–10; Rev 1:4–8

Ordinances

We believe there are two ordinances (sometimes referred to as sacraments): Believer’s Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We practice these ordinances in faith and obedience until the Lord returns. They are not a means of salvation.

Believer’s Baptism – We each come to faith in God through a free, personal decision as convicted by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, whenever possible, we practice the baptism of believers by full immersion in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Since baptism is reserved for those mature enough to make a fully conscious and committed decision as an act of obedience to Jesus’ teaching and example, we do not practice infant baptism. Matt 28:18–20; Acts 2:37–41; 8:12–13, 34–40; 10:44–48; 16:29–34; Rom 6:1–14; Gal 3:23–29; Titus 3:4–7

The Lord’s Supper – On a regular basis (weekly to monthly) we communally remember and identify with the saving death and resurrection of Jesus by sharing in Christ’s body and blood through receiving the bread and cup. Matt 26:17–30; Mark 14:12–26; Luke 22:7–20; 1 Cor 11:23–34

Congregational Governance

We follow a form of governance in which congregants submit to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Holy Scripture. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they discern and participate in the Father’s ministry of reconciliation. Local churches grant membership to those who publicly confess Jesus Christ as Saviour, are baptized, and who demonstrate a desire to follow Christ as Lord in a life of obedience and service. Members are given an equal voice, vote, and opportunity to serve according to their spiritual gifts in an environment of mutual participation and accountability. In accordance with the priesthood of all believers, congregations affirm spiritual giftings and appoint Spirit-led leaders. In partnership with the CBWC, local congregations set apart ministers of the gospel, both men and women, to teach, preach, shepherd, and make disciples of Christ.

Matt 18:15–20; John 14:12–31; Acts 2:37–47; 10:44–48; 13:1–3; Rom 12; 2 Cor 5:16–6:2; Eph 2:11–22; 4:7–16; 1 Tim 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9; 1 Pet 5:1–5

Church Association as Interdependence

Just as membership in a local church is voluntary and for the sake of interdependence in the life of the church, so participation of Baptist congregations in the CBWC is voluntary and for the sake of interdependence. Under the Lordship of Christ, associated churches reflect the life and teachings of Jesus and the practices of the New Testament church, working together to accomplish the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. The identity of associated churches is tied to the values of the larger CBWC body.

We desire to be grace-filled, compassionate and ever open to God’s leading, so that all may come to know and experience God’s love through the proclamation of the gospel. Thus, associated churches share resources to fulfill our mandate. We recognize the value of cooperating in mission through such means as training in theology, discipleship and leadership, the ordination of women and men, pastoral support, camping outreach, community development, and local and global evangelism.

Mark 12:28–34; Acts 1:1–14; 1 Cor 16:1–20; 2 Cor 8:1–9:15; Col 3:1–17

Separation of Church and State

We affirm the practice of religious liberty and freedom of conscience to be essential to the security and wellbeing of both Church and State and recognize the unique and separate functions of each. The Church is called to be salt and light in the world, pointing to the Kingdom of God and contributing to the greater good of all.

Ps 72:1–14; Dan 3:1–30; Matt 5:13–16; 22:15–22; Acts 4:1–21; 5:17–42; Rom 13:1–7; 1 Pet 2:11–17; Rev 19:11–21

Marriage

We define marriage as a publicly recognized lifelong covenant between a woman and a man whose relationship is characterized by loving faithfulness. The purpose of marriage is interdependence, mutual responsibility, and potential for procreation. Marriage symbolizes the relationship of God to his people and of Christ to his church.

Gen 1:26–31, 2:18–25; Mal 2:10–16; Matt 19:1–12; Eph 5:18–32

Engaging in Mission

We believe that the gospel has transforming power, rooted in the grace and righteousness of God. We are compelled to proclaim this good news of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, to stand firm against injustice, and to practice mercy. In our broken world, God invites us to participate in His work of reconciliation, which involves us in the work of restoring relationships to wholeness—the relationship each person has with God, creation, other human beings, and the self. Because we believe in the God-breathed sanctity of human life from conception to death, we make every effort to demonstrate Christian love to all people.

Gen 1–2; 12:1–3; Exod 19:1–6; Ps 24:1–2; 86:8–13; Isa 58; 65–66; Mic 6:1–8; Matt 5–7; 10:1–11:1; 22:36–40; 28:16–20; Acts 1:1–11; 10:1–48; 17:16–34; Rom 12:9–21; 2 Cor 5:11–21; Jas 1:19–27; 1 Pet 3:8–16; 1 John 4:7–12

This statement was approved by the Assembly in May 2022. NOTE: The Assembly requested that scripture references be added to the Statement of Faith portion of this Identity Statement. Carey Theological College has been tasked with this project. The amended version will be posted online once it is available.

Share

^[1]Text from the Baptist Church Manual (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society), as reprinted in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3 (New York: Harper, 1877), 742–48; see William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 2nd rev. ed., rev. Bill J. Leonard (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011). On the 1875 adoption, Theo. T. Gibson, Beyond the Granite Curtain: The Story of Alexander McDonald (Ancaster, ON, 1975), chap. 10, quoting the church minute book; Harry A. Renfree, Heritage and Horizon: The Baptist Story in Canada (Mississauga, ON: Canadian Baptist Federation, 1988), 175.

^[2]“Constitution of the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the North-West,” in “The Baptist Convention of Manitoba & the North-West, Minutes of the First Meeting, 1884–1885,” Baptist Year Book (1885): 81–83; reprinted in C. C. McLaurin, Pioneering in Western Canada: A Story of the Baptists (Calgary: published by the author, 1939), 110–11. “Self-sufficiency” is McLaurin’s reading; the Ontario texts have “all-sufficiency.” For the lineage, William Norman Albert Gillespie, “Ontario’s 19th Century Baptist Tradition: Its Roots and Its Development” (PhD diss., University of Waterloo, 1990), chap. 4.

^[3] In 1925 a committee of the British Columbia Convention, within the Baptist Union of Western Canada, issued a minority report advocating a twenty-one-point Statement of Faith. The report was rejected that year, and a motion to require a statement of faith was defeated at the 1927 assembly. In that same year, seventeen churches left the BC Convention and the BUWC, forming the Convention of Regular Baptist Churches of British Columbia. They joined the Fellowship in 1953. Interestingly, the statement seems fairly normal theologically. It looks like it didn’t pass due more to personality differences than theological ones. One simply has to look across the country to TT Shields to see what I mean.

^[4]Callum Norman Jones, “The Canadian Baptists of Western Canada: Baptist Identity and Ecumenical Relationships, 1907–1986” (PhD thesis, Middlesex University / London School of Theology, 2013), 23–24, quoting the BUWC constitution.

^[5] https://worldea.org/who-we-are/statement-of-faith/

^[6]Jones, “Canadian Baptists of Western Canada,” 294–95 and Appendix II, 348–49, reproducing Appendix A of Douglas Moffat, Statements of Faith and Baptist History Supplement, supplement to The Link, November 15, 1985; Jeremy Bell, “Of Statements of Faith, Creeds and Covenants: A Primer,” News & Notes 3, no. 8 (February 21, 2007), Canadian Baptists of Western Canada.

^[7]Jones, “Canadian Baptists of Western Canada,” Appendix II, 349–50, reproducing Appendix C of Moffat, Statements of Faith; on the vote, Jones, chap. 6.

^[8]Canadian Baptists of Western Canada, “Identity Statement of the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada,” approved by the CBWC Assembly, May 2022, https://thechurchco-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/3589/2023/01/A.-Identity-Statement-Approved-Assembly-2022.pdf.

On February 7, 1875, Alexander McDonald formed the first Baptist church in Western Canada (Winnipeg) with seven members. At the service that organized the church, they read the New Hampshire Confession of Faith and celebrated Holy Communion.

By 1880, there were four churches in this region. They associated together as the Red River Association. In 1882, they formed a larger convention, the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the North-West, which adopted its constitution in 1884. As its constitution shows, they unified around a Compendium of Doctrine common to most Ontario Associations, rooted in the Second London Baptist Confession (1689) as adopted by the Philadelphia Association (1724/42).

Actually, the form can be traced a bit earlier to the Midland Association (which had framed its own Sixteen Articles in 1655), because this association began around 1752 to use a similar compendium that one can trace through various associations in England and America and then into Canada in 1844. By 1884, it was present in the West through this means.

In any case, the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the North-West adopted this historic statement of faith. This convention included Alberta and Saskatchewan (North-West) but not yet British Columbia. That would happen in 1907 when the BCMNW united with the Convention of Baptist Churches of British Columbia.

This Convention was called the Baptist Convention of Western Canada. Two years later, it was renamed the Baptist Union of Western Canada (1909). Then in 2007, it became the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada.

While the constitution did not include the Compendia noted above, confessions remained present in local churches, most commonly the New Hampshire Confession. The BUWC would, however, use various statements to identify itself, such as Ten Principles in 1962, the EFC statement of faith (1986), the Carey Statement of Faith (1982, adopted as the CBWC Statement of Faith in 2007), and then the 2022 Identity Statement.

The Philadelphia Association of Baptists formed in 1707, being the first Baptist association in America. It adopted a slightly expanded form of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, called the Philadelphia Confession of 1742.

My interest here is less in the confession or association itself than in Benjamin Griffith’s brief but important essay, adopted in 1749, on the Baptist doctrine of associationalism.

The essay became a significant and lasting influence on the history of associations, which would include conventions and societies. Read the essay yourself, as I have reproduced it below, with some minor updating to modern English conventions.

The Text of the Essay

That an Association is not a superior judicature, having such superior power over the churches concerned; but that each particular

[Original page 61]

church has a complete power and authority from Jesus Christ, to administer all gospel ordinances, provided they have a sufficiency of officers duly qualified, or that they be supplied by the officers of another sister church or churches, as baptism, and the Lord’s supper, etc.; and to receive in and cast out, and also to try and ordain their own officers, and to exercise every part of gospel discipline and church government, independent of any other church or assembly whatever.

And that several such independent churches, where Providence gives them their situation convenient, may, and ought, for their mutual strength, counsel, and other valuable advantages, by their voluntary and free consent, to enter into an agreement and confederation, as is hinted in our printed Narrative of discipline, pages 59, 60, 61.

Such churches there must be agreeing in doctrine and practice, and independent in their authority and church power, before they can enter into a confederation, as aforesaid, and choose delegates or representatives, to associate together; and thus the several independent churches being the constituents, the association, council or assembly of their delegates, when assembled, is not to be deemed a superior judicature, as having a superintendency over the churches, but subservient to the churches, in what may concern all the churches in general, or any one church in particular; and, though no power can regularly arise above its fountain from where it rises, yet we are of opinion, that an Association of the delegates of associate churches have a very considerable power in their hands, respecting those churches in their confederation; for if the agreement of several distinct churches, in sound doctrine and regular practice, be the first motive, ground, and foundation or basis of their confederation, then it must naturally follow, that a defection in doctrine or practice in any church, in such confederation, or any party in any such church, is ground sufficient for an Association to withdraw from such a church or party so deviating or making defection, and to exclude such from them in some formal manner, and to advertise all the churches in confederation thereof, in order that every church in confederation may withdraw from such in all acts of church communion, to the end they may be ashamed, and that all the churches may discountenance such, and bear testimony against the defection.

Such withdrawing from a defective or disorderly church, or that ought to be towards a delinquent church, is such as arises from their voluntary confederation aforesaid, and not only from the general duty that is incumbent on all orthodox persons, and churches to do, where no such confederation is entered into (2 Cor 6:16–17). Now, from that general duty to withdraw from defective persons or churches, there can no more be done, than to desist from such acts of fellowship as subsisted before the withdrawing, which is merely negative, and in no way anything positive. Churches, as they are pillars of truth, may, and ought to endeavor to promote truth among others also; which endeavors, if they prove fruitless, as they are but mys-

[Original page 62]

tico modo, they may be withdrawn; the withdrawing, therefore, must be accordingly; which is only to cease from future endeavors, leaving the objects as they were or are. But if there be a confederation and incorporation, by mutual and voluntary consent, as the Association of churches must and ought to be, then something positive may and ought to be done; and, though an Association ought not to assume a power to excommunicate or deliver a defective or disorderly church to Satan, as some do claim, yet it is a power sufficient to exclude the delegates of a defective or disorderly church from an Association, and to refuse their presence at their consultations, and to advise all the churches in confederation to do so too. A godly man may, and ought to withdraw, not only from a heathen, but from such as have the form of godliness, if they appear to want the power of it (2 Tim 3:5), by the same parity of reason the saints, in what capacity soever they may be considered, may withdraw from defective or disorderly churches or persons; but excommunicate they cannot, there being no institution to authorize them so to do. But in the capacity of a congregational church, dealing with her own members, an Association, then, of the delegates of associate churches, may exclude and withdraw from defective and unsound or disorderly churches or persons, in manner abovesaid; and this will appear regular and justifiable by the light and law of nature, as is apparent in the conduct and practice of all regular civil and political corporations and confederations whatsoever; who all of them have certain rules to exclude delinquents from their societies, as well as for others to accede thereunto.

We judge those things in the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles to be imitable by an Association, viz.: first, their disowning of the erroneous and Judaizing teachers, saying, to whom we gave no such commandment (Acts 15:24); secondly, the sending delegated persons of their own number, with Paul and Barnabas, to support their sentence in the place where the debate sprung up (Acts 15:25); and a third thing followed in consequence thereof, viz., a delivering of the decrees to the other churches, to be observed, as well as the church of Antioch (Acts 16:4). Consistent therewith, the practice of after ages is found to be; when, because they had no council, synod, or association to convene, of course they called a council, in order to make head against any error or disorders, when in any particular church, such things grew too big for a particular church peaceably to determine, as the case about circumcision was at Antioch. In such cases all the churches were looked upon as one church, and all the bishops as universal, because of the unity of the faith and conformity of practice which ought to be in the churches of Christ; though in all other cases, the several distinct churches acted independent of each other, as Cyprian relates the practice of his time, viz.: That the bishops were so united in one body, that if any one of the body broached any heresy, or began to waste and tear the flock of Christ, all the rest came immediately to its rescue. Cyprian, cited by Bingham, book 2, page 101. And the same author observes, that they disowned the faulty, and advertised all the churches of the same. And Mr.

[Original page 63]

Crosby relates, that an Association in London did disown a certain disorderly church in London, and did caution all the churches they were related to, not to countenance them in any way, nor to suffer their members to frequent their meetings; and thus an Association may disown and withdraw from a defective or disorderly church, and advise the churches related to them to withdraw from, and to discountenance such as aforesaid, without exceeding the bounds of their power.

And further, that an Association of the delegates of confederate churches may doctrinally declare any person or party in a church, who are defective in principles or disorderly in practice, to be censurable, when the affair comes under their cognizance, and without exceeding the bounds of their power and duty, to advise the church that such belong unto, how to deal with such, according to the rule of gospel discipline; and also to strengthen such a church, and assist her, if need be, by sending able men of their own number to help the church in executing the power vested in her by the ordinance of Jesus Christ, and to stand by her, and to defend her against the insults of such offending persons or parties.

The above is a transcript of the said essay, according to the order given by the said Association, which was ordered to be taken without the then introduction and singularity. Taking the substance and contents thereof as the judgment of the Association, respecting their power and duty.

Consented to and transcribed by me, Benjamin Griffith.

Signed by the whole Association, whose names are—

Nathaniel Jenkins, Moderator,
John Watson,
Jenkin Jones,
Thomas Smith,
Owen Thomas,
Augsbury Smith,
David Davis,
Samuel Ashmead,
John Davis,
Lewis Thomas,
James Carman,
Thomas Coxs,
Abel Morgan,
Ministers.
James Dorset,
Benj. Miller,
John Davis,
Joshua Potts,
Robert Chaffin,
Isaac Eaton,
John Williams,
Malachiah Bonham,
James Davis,
Oliver Hart,
Andrew Bray,
William Marshall,
John Stout,
Jno. Bartholomew,
Crispin Collet.
William Smith,

[The printed brace labels Jenkin Jones through Oliver Hart as “Ministers.”]

On application made to the Association, to appoint proper persons to examine and approve the transcript of the above said essay, before it be inserted in the Association book, Mr. Jenkin Jones and Mr. Joshua Potts were named, and such others as could readiest be got; and accordingly Mr. Owen Thomas and those above named, did peruse and approve of the same as it is above inserted.

Brother Peter Peterson Vanhorn is to preach the Association sermon; and, in case of failure, Brother Isaac Eaton.

Source

Benjamin Griffith, “Essay,” in Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, from A.D. 1707, to A.D. 1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence, ed. A. D. Gillette (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 60–63. [I made some minor updates to modernize spelling and presentation.]

At the Council of Ephesus in 431, bishops and leaders there placed the Gospel books upon a throne. It signified that whatever statements or decisions were made there would be made under the reign of Jesus. The council synod formed in order to protect the “true faith.” And thus its members began deliberations “with the holy gospel-book set before [us] on the midmost throne to indicate that Christ himself was present with us.”^[1]

Speaking of the enthronement, Charidimos Koutris explains, “they employed the object which contains the truth (i.e. the word of God), that is the Gospel-book. They enthrone it in the middle of their assembly to manifest Christ’s presence among them, and they employ it to seek and establish the truth in matters of faith and in the testimonies of the witnesses.”^[2]

While we have no evidence the same thing happened in 325 at Nicaea, although it might have, we can say that Scripture played a central role at that Council. Indeed, the Nicene Creed symbolized a pattern of reading Scripture according to its scope and sequence, which accords with Christ and the Rule of Faith.

Share

Anyone reading the various accounts of the Rule of Faith or the baptismal creeds of the second and third centuries would not be surprised to read the Nicene Creed, save for two phrases: “from the essence of the Father” and “same-essence with the Father.” These non-biblical terms caused a protracted debate that lasted fifty-six years; the debate concerned whether it was appropriate to use non-biblical language in a Creed and whether these terms captured appropriately the scope and Rule of Faith that the apostles delivered both verbally and in their writings.

Ultimately, the Church came to the conclusion that the Creed represented the Rule of Faith, but the road to consensus was not an easy one. Many books and letters were written; friendships started, friendships ended; bishops were exiled, others persecuted. The story may sound like a battle over mere words, but when we look at the historical settings and writings of the theologians, we find something that we may not be able to grasp in our modern contexts: the theologians of the church believed salvation was at stake.

In other words, for them, the stakes were not minuscule. Heaven and hell hung in the balance. And while we do find some Christians seeking power, that is not the primary story. Instead, Christian leaders held fast to the faith once and for all delivered (at least as they understood it) and were willing to undergo exile and death for the sake of the salvation of others.

Why? Because they maintained that the Rule of Faith must be preserved for the salvation of souls. So Origen will write, “If living a life of good morals is sufficient for salvation for people, how are the philosophers among the Gentiles or many among the heretics who live self-controlled lives by no means saved?”^[3] Good morals are insufficient; faith must accompany works since one without the other leads to similar ends: a dead faith or dead works.

This pursuit to maintain the Rule of Faith, the Faith once and for all handed down by the apostles, for us and for our salvation, therefore caused existential crises, yet the fruit of such crises produced an indomitable conviction in the Faith. We can see this especially in the second and third centuries when infrequent but deadly persecutions struck Christian communities. At both Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), many Pro-Nicene Fathers would have had friends and family who had suffered or died for their faith, just years before each respective Council. Yet the majority saw in the Creeds of these Councils the same Rule of Faith that the apostles delivered, that Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen proclaimed, and that was present in both the interrogative and declarative baptismal creeds for at least a century and a half (and likely much earlier).

The Nicene Fathers believed that earliest and early Christians received the teachings of Christ from the apostles. They therefore ordered them in a pattern of sound teaching that became a Rule (guide) for reading Scripture, which climaxed at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. They were willing to die, suffer exile and great loss for the sake of this Faith, believing salvation hung in the balance.

Today, the situation feels quite different. Even so, the Nicene Creed is the one Creed that all Christians agree on, even if they do not confess it as a Creed in their local settings. That would not surprise the members of the Council of Nicaea, since they simply believed the Creed was the same faith that all Christians up till that time confessed. The Creed was not a special or unique statement, although the Arian controversy led to the formulation of the Rule of Faith in the creed. And yes, that meant clarifying the Rule of Faith in some specific ways.

Particularly, the reason why the Pro-Nicene bishops introduced the words “from the essence” (ek tes ousias) and “one in essence” (homoousia) was because these terms clarified the ecclesiastical faith (so Athanasius, De Decretis, §3, §19). And they had good reasons to clarify. Consider how Athanasius explains, for instance, why the Nicene Fathers introduced the phrase “from the essence of God”:

“But the party of Eusebius … wished the designation of his being “from God” to be taken as something in common with us and the Word of God to be no different from us in this respect, as it is written; “one God from whom are all things” (1 Cor 8:6) and “the old things have passed away; behold all that is new has come to be; and all this is from God” (2 Cor 5:17,18). So the fathers of the council … finally found it necessary to proclaim the “from God” more clearly and to write “the Son is from the essence of the Father” (ek tēs ousias tou theou), so that “from God” may not be considered to be the same and equal in the case of the Son as it is with things that have come to be; but that it may be confessed that while all others are creatures, the Word is uniquely from the Father” (De Decretis 19).^[4]

In other words, Athanasius claims that the Eusebians believed the Son is from God, but they believed he is from God in the same way that all things are from God—as creatures. But the Son is from God as the one through whom all things were created. He is thus from God in a way that no creature can be. The way Athanasius says the council expressed that was by affirming that the Son is from the Father’s essence. He will say much the same thing when it comes to affirming the Son’s unity of essence with the Father.

Athanasius saw this as a clear breach in the church’s teaching, that Rule of Faith that both confessed the oneness of God and also the trinitas of the one God of Israel. This meant that to preserve what is one in God, one must confess that what is three in God (Father, Son, Spirit) is naturally one. Thus, the doctrine of natural birth or, in the old-fashioned language, the Son’s generation from the Father, found pride of place in the Creed to clarify that the Father and Son are naturally one, not merely united in will, honour, or activity. But Father and Son truly are alike in every way, sharing a natural union.

While human parents beget children of the same nature, the latter are born in time and through material change. But, as Athanasius would point out, since Christians believe God’s mode of existence is outside of time and change and because God is simple, then it follows that the Son’s generation happens eternally (not in time) and without change (since simple). Hence, through a proportional analogy of God’s being to ours, we can say that while we generate in time and through material division, God has always had a Son through a relation of eternal generation without change.

The theological reflection here seems overwhelming, but this is because priests and theologians like Asterius, Arius, and Eusebius (less so, him) introduced a cosmology and divine principle that divided the natural unity of Father and Son by placing the Son as the Mediator between the Father and creation through a relation of will to both. In other words, the Son had a united will with the Father and willed the creation of all things with the Father. While that sounds plausibly orthodox, Pro-Nicene bishops recognized a breach in the Rule of Faith because it meant that the Son fell on the side of creation; he was a creature, even if elevated and the most divine of all creatures.

Assuming we accept Athanasius’s portrayal of events around Nicaea, it would not be the first time that Christians made explicit the Rule of Faith’s sense (dianoian), so that the statements of Scripture are understood according to their sense, along the sequence of words that disclose its subject matter.

Nicaea is one significant blip in history as Christians continued to argue from Scripture for the Rule of Faith against Docetism, Marcionism, gnostic teaching, Sabellianism, and more besides.

Whenever someone on the internet calls some one or thing Gnostic, I can almost guarantee that this will be an inaccurate accusation. After all, the dualism present in gnosticism was not unique to them. What likely marks them off as a distinct group is, as David Brakke argues, their mythology. And I do not think anyone today holds to their myths.

In this short article, I want to give a brief overview of gnostic Christianity to explain why it created a crisis of identity for Christians associated with Rome and Egypt (and probably elsewhere).

Share

Gnostics within Christianity

When Christians began to call themselves Gnostics in the early to mid 100s, it probably sounded strange. Everyone wanted to receive gnosis (knowledge), and even Clement of Alexandria believes that Christians should pursue the ideal of being a Gnostic, but the term to describe Christians remained, well, Christian. The word was simply not used to describe a religion or group yet.

Indeed, it was an academic term that probably sounded flattering. Oh, you are a knower, someone who has true knowledge. Even Evagrius Ponticus called ascetics gnostics. It was not then an insult or slur as it is sometimes today.

Given the evidence in the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Porphyry, and the various recovered texts at Nag Hammadi, it seems clear that some of those who claimed the title emerged from within Christianity. Tertullian even recounts that Valentinus, one who shared in the gnostic myths and cosmology, was a candidate to become the bishop of Rome.

He explains: “Valentinus expected to become bishop because he had great abilities of mind and tongue, but another was preferred for the position because he suffered as a martyr. Angry at this, Valentinus broke with the legitimate church” (Against Valentinians 4).

While we cannot speculate too much over whether or not Valentinus truly could have become bishop, I find it reasonable that he was a candidate. He was eloquent and intelligent. And his public teaching was Christian while his private teaching revealed gnostic myths. So many would perceive him as saying similar things to someone like Justin Martyr. His brilliance likely also covered a multitude of sins. A near contemporary to Valentinus, Basilides, wrote twenty-four books on the gospel in the early second century. Therefore, Valentinus was not alone in his literary production; this group of Gnostics represented an elite layer within Christian communities.

Now, I am speaking about Gnostics emerging from within Christianity, and so I think I should at least justify the language of “within Christianity.” First, Valentinus claimed Christ as Saviour. So did many people who called themselves Gnostics. I agree with David Brakke in his The Gnostics that this was a self-designation, based on the ancient evidence. In this sense, they claim Christ for themselves while taking the title Gnostic; they also participated in non-gnostic or apostolic churches. In this sense, they emerged from within Christianity.

Technically, the Gnostics were an identifiable group who had offshoots; the Valentinian school was one such offshoot. And we can call it Gnostic because it shares gnostic myths. As noted, I again agree with Brakke that the best way to identify gnostic teaching is through its myths. Hence, Valentinus, although distinct from the earlier gnostics, would be a gnostic teacher of the next generation.

With all that said, what myths did they tell? And why did they threaten such teachers like Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian?

Gnostic Myths

The major sources for early gnostic teaching include both critical works such as by Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian and, due to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, positive writings of gnostic thought such as The Secret Book According to John and The Gospel of Judas (the latter not from Nag Hammadi but from the Codex Tchacos, discovered separately in the 1970s and published in 2006).

These writings present gnostic teaching as attempting to re-read Scripture (the Old Testament) in light of Jesus’s advent. Remember, the New Testament documents began circulating widely in the early 100s, but they were not yet “the New Testament” as we understand it. Thousands of people primarily read the Old Testament and produced their own writings to explain the significance of Jesus.

Early Gnostics and later teachers such as Valentinus read the Christ event in light of a creation story and cosmology, which meant they saw the Old Testament (i.e., the Scriptures) as telling a specific story. While there is some diversity in these myths, one telling of it goes like this.

First, the god who created heaven and earth is an ignorant and proud being, who descended from Sophia who bore him out of passion and ignorance. This being, the Demiurge or Yaldabaoth, created the material world and lacks knowledge of the true God and Father (sometimes called the Abyss). The flood, for example, was his anger at the Sethites because they began worshipping the true God, not him. Hence, the creator is not the father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ, an Aeon, came to materiality to share secret or hidden things to liberate spirits from their material existence. He, along with various powers and Aeons (Sophia, Truth, Light, etc.) makes up a cosmic map of beings. The body of Jesus is either used like a glove or, in another myth, Christ switches places with Simon of Cyrene who is then crucified. Obviously, in this paradigm, the resurrection of the body is moot since the goal was the liberation of the spirit from flesh, from matter.

Now, I have combined two or three different versions of the gnostic myth, and I think in this narrow case, I am justified in doing so because it helps to paint a picture of how elaborate these myths were.

They acted like a rule or canon by which the Scriptures were read. God in Genesis 1:1 was Yaldabaoth. The titles for Christ are not his titles but rather speak of various Aeons. The God of the Old Testament is not the God and Father of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of the body is reinterpreted away. And so on.

So that meant these teachers claimed salvation in Christ but read Scripture according to these myths, like keys to unlock the literal meaning of the text to understand its hidden, secret meanings. Indeed, gnostics within Christianity believed Christ taught these things to one apostle who alone held on to this knowledge—sometimes Judas, at other times John. Indeed, the Gospel of Judas paints the one who betrayed Christ in a positive light, as a true gnostic, who betrays him according to a pre-arranged plan to destroy the material order. It is quite the reversal of expectations, given the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Gnostic Exegesis

So what seems to really be at stake is who can interpret the Scriptures, that is, the Old Testament and what they mean. Tertullian, in his Prescription against the Heretics, uses a legal term praescriptio to argue that only Christians who hold fast to the Rule of Faith, given by the apostles verbally and present in the apostolic writings, have the right to teach it.

Remember, contextually, that the above myths were used as a key to interpret the words of Scripture in ways that are not obvious in the text. Further, Irenaeus points out how many of these teachers re-ordered the story of Scripture to fit within their mythic system. And hence, Christians found it difficult to debate with gnostics.

After all, if a gnostic says God gave him special insight into the text and its hidden divine meaning, which one cannot discover except through extra-biblical revelation and a complex cosmological system, how does one respond? We could say that John 1 teaches that Christ is the Word of the Creator. They would say: actually, no, and the words like Truth or Light in the context refer to Aeons, not Christ (another Aeon).

Okay, so then there is no way to argue from the text because something outside the text determines its meaning, viz., gnostic myths. Now, Christians also purported to have their own Rule of Faith. Yet the key difference here is that this Rule came from the verbal teaching of the Apostles, yet also agrees with the given sequence in the Old Testament and the manifest meaning of the apostolic writings.

It is doubtful that gnostics within Christian communities felt the same way. Indeed, we have some evidence in the Gospel of Judas that they thought apostolic Christians were misguided. Do remember that these groups too claimed apostolic succession from one apostle upon whom Christ had bestowed gnosis, and from this unbroken line they received revelation and knowledge.

Consider, for example, the Gospel of Judas which specifies that Judas was the one who had true gnosis; the other apostles did not. Well, when the Gospel of Judas was written, Christians read and followed writings from the other apostles who were ignorant of the truth!

Final thoughts

Ultimately, what we know as orthodoxy grew and gnostics declined. I cannot imagine that Jesus allowed Paul and the Eleven to remain ignorant while Judas, who betrayed him, somehow was the true gnostic. Nor am I convinced that secret revelations of Aeons and the fall of the one who would create the world seem in anywise plausible. The discontinuity between this teaching (supposedly of Christ) and the Old Testament scriptures is striking.

Marcion desired to cut away the Old Testament due to the lack of the creator’s clemency; while Valentinians like Ptolemy, whose letter to Flora remains extant, simply wanted to re-identify him as a fallen and semi-just creator of a material reality that requires Christ to save us from.

The Rule of Faith as presented by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others seems to treat the Old Testament much more naturally, and show how Jesus came in fulfillment of its promises. That Rule states that there is one God and Father of our one Lord Jesus Christ through whom God created all things. And it states that Christ, that eternal Word from the Father, became Incarnate for us and for our salvation. And it maintains that the Spirit spake in the prophets, that Christ would return to judge the quick and the dead; and a bodily resurrection would precede our eternal felicity.

That Rule seems a better guide to the Scripture than one given by Valentinus.

By the way, I am teaching a class on how the early church read Scripture, which you can audit.

Audit

Sometime around the turn of the second century, Christians in Carthage debated whether or not virgins should veil their heads. It was customary for married women to do so, but not so for virgins. Apparently, one party in the church thought that all virgins should remain unveiled. And this started a conflict.

As Tertullian writes into this debate, he admits that Christians have various customs on this question, but he thinks it is best for virgins to also veil. To make this case, he proposes three categories: faith, custom, and discipline. The faith is based on Christ’s truthful teaching, summarized in the Rule of Faith, and thus is eternal. Custom emerges from human culture and carries with it no intrinsic authority. And lastly, the Spirit leads the church to apply the faith to various challenges and customs as a means of disciplining the church towards holiness.

Tertullian believes that veiling virgins best accords with discipline, which is rooted in the truth. But he remains cautious, because differing customs do not mean a different faith. He explains:

“We cannot contemptuously reject a custom which we cannot condemn, inasmuch as it is not “strange,” since it is not among “strangers” that we find it, but among those, to wit, with whom we share the law of peace and the name of brotherhood. They and we have one faith, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same baptismal sacraments; let me say it once for all, we are one Church. Thus, whatever belongs to our brethren is ours: only, the body divides us” (Veiling 2.3).

Notice here the implied distinction between faith and custom. Customs should not divide those united in the same faith. Yet because the question of veiling split the church’s unity, Tertullian proposes a solution: veiling virgins lies in truth as the Spirit leads the church in its discipline, not mere custom; and so the church in Carthage should adopt this position instead.

Following this distinction between custom and truth, he writes:

“it behoves our virgins to be veiled from the time that they have passed the turning-point of their age: that this observance is exacted by truth, on which no one can impose prescription----no space of times, no influence of persons, no privilege of regions. For these, for the most part, are the sources whence, from some ignorance or simplicity, custom finds its beginning; and then it is successionally confirmed into an usage, and thus is maintained in opposition to truth. [2] But our Lord Christ has surnamed Himself Truth, not Custom” (Veiling, 1.1–2).

Behind his claim lies a contrast between the truth of Christ, which is eternal, and the customs of the church, which are temporal. Yet it is worth pondering how Tertullian conceives of custom here, to understand why he feels veiling best accords with Spiritual discipline and thus truth.

First, Tertullian points out that custom becomes prescribed through time, personalities, or regional practices. But this is not a real prescription because only truth should bind us to action, whereas custom oftentimes occurs by mere happenstance or “ignorance or simplicity.” So he implies that those who advocate for unveiling are simply doing so due to a custom. Instead, they should argue according to truth.

Hence, he writes his famous line, “But our Lord Christ has surnamed Himself Truth, not Custom” (Dominus noster Christus veritatem se, non consuetudinem, cognominavit). The qualitative difference between truth, in Christ who is eternal, and custom, which is temporal and changeable, outlines the kind of authority an argument has. And it is in this context that Tertullian relays the Rule of Faith, something he assumes everyone in Carthage would know and consent to as eternal truth, found in Christ:

“The rule of faith, indeed, is altogether one, alone immoveable and irreformable; the rule, to wit, of believing in one only God omnipotent, the Creator of the universe, and His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised again the third day from the dead, received in the heavens, sitting now at the right (hand) of the Father, destined to come to judge quick and dead through the resurrection of the flesh as well (as of the spirit)” (Veiling 1.4).

This rule represents the truth of Christ, founded in his teaching or the teaching of his apostles. Yet at this stage in his argument, Tertullian cannot yet say that veiling equals truth because custom has no rational basis. That would be too facile, and it would, as he noted above, divide the church, which unites around the Rule of Faith.

Share

He therefore proposes a third category beyond faith and custom, which he calls discipline. The latter is found in Scripture but can be changeable based on the needs of the moment. In other words, when new sins or situations arise, pastors can use wisdom to apply the faith to changing circumstances (Veiling, 1.6). In his own language, he contrasts it with the Rule of Faith in this way: “This law of faith being constant, the other succeeding points of discipline and conversation admit the ‘novelty’ of correction; the grace of God, to wit, operating and advancing even to the end” (Veiling 1.5). In other words, the church allows for novel discipline when it has new challenges to overcome.

Particularly, Tertullian ties this operation of discipline to the Holy Spirit, citing John 16:12–13 in evidence (Veiling, 1.5–6). Of the Spirit, he writes, “What, then, is the Paraclete’s administrative office but this: the direction of discipline, the revelation of the Scriptures, the reformation of the intellect, the advancement toward the ‘better things?’” (Veiling, 1.8).

As an historical aside, Tertullian likely draws on his experience with Montanism here, an early Christian prophetic movement. If so, that would place the date of On the Veiling of Virgins to around AD 210. In any case, the better things promised by the Spirit in this age of discipline involve moral action and countering the schemes of the devil. In the context of this treatise, it means for Tertullian that virgins should “be wholly covered” (Veiling 1.10).

In summary, Tertullian proposes three categories for Christian faith and practice. The first is custom, which is neutral but must not prescribe practices that only faith can. The second category is faith, as a body of teaching (e.g., The Rule of Faith), which derives directly from Christ who is Truth. It is thus as eternal as Christ. And third, due to the Spirit leading Christians in all truth, he proposes a category called discipline, which adapts the faith to changing ages or challenges.

Tertullian does not believe the Rule of Faith can be changed; he specifically means new disciplines to respond to unheard-of moral challenges. I imagine he would say the category of discipline applies to how Christians should think of the atom bomb, something not mentioned in Scripture but one that requires spiritual guidance to know how to grasp its significance.

Because of the length of this article, you will likely need to hit “view entire message” in your email application or simply click into the Substack site.

Few Baptists have a rationale for why they are Baptist, or even realize what it means to be Baptist.

— John Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches, 2^nd ed., 12.

John Hammett points out how we, as Baptists, do not always realize why we are Baptists. That was true of me. I was saved about thirty-five years ago while my family attended First Baptist Church Penticton, a then Baptist Union of Western Canada church (now CBWC). I have been a life-long Baptist. And yet: until I got into Christian ministry, I really had no idea what made a Baptist different from other Protestants, except I knew foggily that some Christians baptized babies and we did not.

Two events, however, led me to pursue why I was Baptist. The first was becoming a Baptist pastor. That might be obvious. But I needed to really know why, if I was going to pastor a Baptist church. The second probably was more existentially pressing: I became a parent. And so I had to figure out: do I baptize my kids? What church will nourish their souls? What does God want me to do? What does the Bible say?

Many people whom I respected were Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Anglican. They baptized babies, and they believed the Bible tells them to do so. So that meant I had to ask the million-dollar question as a parent: how should I disciple my family? Well, as you may have guessed, I stayed Baptist. And now: I have four children, and I am more convinced of Baptist theology and practice than ever.

But this experience leads me to wonder how many Baptists today feel as I did then. They encounter Christians who disagree, and they think: why am I a Baptist?

So in this article, and in at least three subsequent pieces of writing, I am going to explain what Baptists believe, why Baptists came to hold these beliefs, how Baptist churches came to Canada, and finally, speculate on what is next for Baptist churches in Canada and across the world.

To begin with, I want to tell the story of the first Baptists to understand why they practiced believer’s baptism, congregational autonomy within associations, and maintained an identity as a company of visible saints. To tell this story, I will look at key events around the emergence of early Baptists in the 1600s in England as well as tracing the beliefs and practices articulated in their voluminous confessions.

Church Organization in 16^th Century England

To understand Baptist origins, we need to first understand how the Church of England operated during the 16^th century because the Baptist story begins with a protest against the Established church.

In the 1500s, the Church of England was a national church. Parish churches dotted the countryside. Bishops presided over dioceses. And every parish church existed as part of this national church with its required worship, ceremonies, and church governance. Laws enforced uniformity in worship and practice across the realm.

But the Protestant Reformation gave life to reformers within the Church. And many of these reformers within were called Puritans. These leaders saw the Church of England’s ecclesiastical rules as preventing Christians from worshipping God biblically. Eventually, some of these Puritan priests decided that the only way to have biblical worship was to separate fully from the Church of England. Others took a slightly less radical approach and simply formed Independent congregations.

And from among these Separatist or Independent congregations in the early 1600s, the first Baptist congregations emerge. As Stanley Grenz explains, “Among others, one crucial and lasting product of the Puritan movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is the existence of a worldwide Baptist denomination, for this is in a very real sense the product of the historical processes set in motion by those reformers of the English Church.”^[1]

Church Separation in 17^th Century England

So why did these Church of England priests and congregations separate or form independent congregations? Here are four reasons.

First, congregations could not elect their own pastors. Instead, each benefice (pastoral role) had an appointed patron like a bishop, or Lord, or even an institution who had the right (advowson) to nominate new pastors (priests). Next, this nominated person would go to the bishop who would approve or deny the request. If approved, the pastor would be appointed to a parish congregation. Now, congregations had informal roles; they could obviously say to the bishop, “we hate this guy.” But the point is that they didn’t have primary responsibility and generally could have pastors/priests imposed upon them.

Second, every congregation had required patterns of worship, articulated in the Book of Common Prayer and other formularies. This meant that the Church of England legally required churches to worship according to an approved pattern. Marriages, deaths, Scripture readings, and more besides had a prescribed pattern that churches needed to follow.

Legal requirements also had teeth. Baptist historian Michael Haykin explains, “In April 1593 a law was passed that required everyone over the age of sixteen to attend their local parish church. Failure to do so for an entire month meant imprisonment. If, after three months following the individual’s release from prison, he or she still refused to conform, the person was to be given a choice of exile or death.”^[2] Indeed, many Baptists were arrested for their faith during the 17^th century.

Famously, John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was imprisoned for twelve years where, in God’s kindness, he wrote beautiful works of Christian spirituality and theology. It turns out the state could stop pastors from preaching verbally but not with the pen.

Third, individual congregations had little to no autonomy over worship and its clergy. Parishes did have reasonable control over local affairs via churchwardens or the like; but they were a parish within a diocese of a national church. Essentially, this meant congregations showed up for church and could manage some local affairs, but they did not have authority as a congregation to order their own worship.

Fourth, in England, almost everyone was baptized into the Church of England. Further, Elizabeth I’s 1559 Act of Uniformity required church attendance. As noted above, further laws re-affirmed this Act and laid out specific punishments for failing to attend one’s parish church. Consequently, not all people within the visible church believed with conviction. Many lived unholy lives. And those who separated accused bishops of not enforcing holy standards, of not disciplining those who sinned and maintaining the holiness of the church. For example, the separatist priest Robert Browne argued for the “separation from all kirks where excommunication was not rigorously used against open offenders not repenting.”^[3]

For these reasons, some Puritans in the Church of England separated into their own congregations. Others stayed in the Church of England to reform it towards congregationalism; and still others remained in to reform it towards Presbyterianism. And I am sure there are many other patterns as well. But for our purposes, we find the earliest Baptists emerging among the Congregationalists who separated from the Church of England. So we must turn to the early Separatist tradition to understand the historical contexts in which General Baptists emerged.

Separatist Congregationalism

Robert Browne (1550–c.1632) is known as the first separatist, and the movement often bore his name (i.e., “Brownists”). He was not loved by the Establishment, and one opponent nicknamed him “Troublechurch” Browne.

In the course of his ministry at Norwich (1580–1582), he came to congregationalist convictions. Near the end of his tenure there, he published A Treatise of Reformation without Tarrying for Anie (1582) in which he laid out congregational principles against the Episcopal system described above. In short, he maintained that “the true Church consisted only of such as led Christian lives and did not properly include all baptized persons,” meaning that those baptized as infants were not necessarily part of the true church.^[4]

As we might imagine, he did not win friends and influence people within the Church of England. He was imprisoned more than once. And due to harassment, he chose to make his way to the Netherlands. His congregation also disbanded and fled to the Netherlands.^[5] Almost all imprisoned Separatists (including Baptists) would choose to go to the Netherlands because of its tolerance for religious diversity. Haykin points out, “What attracted the Separatists to the Netherlands was its geographical proximity to England, its policy of religious toleration, its phenomenal commercial prosperity…and the Reformed nature of its church.”^[6]

Despite Browne’s instrumental role in founding congregationalism, when he returned to England in 1584, he was arrested and would recant his separatist convictions. In 1591 he became an ordained priest. And from within the Church of England, he turned against his former congregationalist friends such as Henry Barrow and John Greenwood.

Yet he remains important for his view that, “A voluntary association or covenant of true believers constituted a church, and each church had the exclusive right of discipline and the choice of its own officers.”^[7] It is this doctrine of the church that all Baptists affirm to a greater or lesser degree, and it was this teaching that led finally to the doctrine of a regenerate church membership, members who all were baptized by faith, because that would ensure that church would be made up of true believers.

[Let me offer a brief call out on the doctrine of separation of church and state in Baptist thought. It should be clear at this point that separation here means separation from a state-imposed liturgy, not separation from the state in every capacity. Early Baptists took oaths, worked in public service, and joined the army. In fact, under Oliver Cromwell, Baptists received toleration and great growth across Great Britain because of their success in military service. Cromwell favoured them, and they planted or visited churches across the country during the wars of the interregnum period. So separation has a very specific sense: separate from required liturgy and clerical imposition.]

Separatists continued to emerge across the country. For example, in 1587 or 1588, a congregation appeared in London. Its two leaders, Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, were arrested. But in prison, they produced the first congregationalist creed called A True Description out of the Word of God, of the visible Church. In the document, “The church itself was defined as a company of believers united in fellowship to Christ and to one another.” And further: “Church officers to be elected by the congregation were said to be pastor, teacher, elder, deacons, and widows.”^[8] So here we have a formal rejection of the episcopal system of church government and an affirmation of congregationalism as well as the right and responsibility to elect one’s own leaders.

By 1592, this London congregation finally nominated its own pastor, Francis Johnson. The delay in gaining a pastor was due to persecution. During a temporary release from prison, they also elected John Greenwood as a teacher for the church. However, things became impossible when in 1593, fifty-six of the church’s members were arrested.^[9] Further, the English figured that the best thing to do at this point was to keep leaders in prison and send members to the Netherlands. So that is what happened, and in 1595, the church regathered in Amsterdam under the leadership of Henry Ainsworth, whom they elected as teacher, since their prior leaders remained in a London prison. Barrow and Greenwood had been hung at Tyburn on April 6^th, 1593, but Francis Johnson was released in 1597 and joined the Separatist congregation in Amsterdam.

In 1596 Separatists, among whom were this Amsterdam church and Ainsworth, produced the True Confession. For Baptist history, this may be the most important early confession. It argued for congregationalism and rejected episcopalism. It also emphasized that congregations should appoint their own leaders and maintain holiness through church discipline (art. 23–24).

The True Confession’s statement of congregational principles showed a coherent view of congregationalism as a viable alternative to Episcopalian ecclesiology. What makes it so important for Baptist history is that in 1644, seven churches in London would write a confession of faith based on the True Confession, which becomes the first instrument of unity for Baptist voluntary associations.

In this way, the True Confession provided congregational backbone for Baptist thought while the First London Baptist confession explained its particular variant of congregationalism: one that emphasized a believer’s church, where every member was baptized on the condition of confessing the faith and living a holy life.

But before we get to this first association of Baptist churches, bound together by the First London Baptist confession, we need to learn more about the first English Baptists: John Smyth and Thomas Helwys.

Subscribe now

John Smyth and Thomas Helwys

Browne, Barrow, Greenwood, and Ainsworth were not the only separatists from the Church of England. Others separated and formed congregations as well. Two such separatists, John Smyth (1570–1612) and Thomas Helwys (c.1575–c.1616), famously led their congregation to re-baptize themselves as believers by affusion. While the term “Baptist” did not regularly appear until the late 17^th century, we can historically categorize Smyth and Helwys’s congregation as the first Baptists because of their biblical convictions that only those who first believe and are baptized are part of the church.

The story begins first with John Smyth, who joined the separatist cause and became a pastor of Gainsborough in about 1606 or 1607. Thomas Helwys shortly afterwards joined this congregation, becoming an important leader.

Smyth initially studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he obtained his BA (1590) and MA (1593). There, he learned Puritan principles, and Francis Johnson (the Separatist pastor noted above) tutored him. So Smyth came by his separatism honestly.

Although Smyth remained within the Church of England as a lecturer in the town of Lincoln, legal pressure increasingly made staying difficult for him. In late 1604, James I issued decrees that required conformity to the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and allegiance to the bishops.^[10] As a result, Smyth met with Puritan leaders including John Robinson who would eventually lead his congregation to take the Mayflower to New England, bringing congregationalism with it to the New World. (Robinson, however, died in Leiden in 1625).

This group of Puritans concluded that they must leave the Church of England, and like so many others, Smyth eventually left with his congregation to the Netherlands to avoid persecution. When he arrived in Amsterdam, he encountered Francis Johnson’s separatist congregation (whom I mentioned earlier). Unfortunately, Smyth struggled to work alongside his former friends. And he published a book in 1608 called, The Differences of the Churches of the Separation. The disagreement led to a breakdown of relationship between the two separatist congregations.

It also split the congregation at Amsterdam. Of around one-hundred-and-fifty people who accompanied Smyth to the Netherlands, one hundred left with John Robinson to Leiden and later sailed to New England. This left Smyth with only fifty people in his congregation, a number that would increasingly dwindle due to Smyth’s temperament.

In 1609, Smyth became convinced that baptism was for believers only. In consequence, he had to discern whether his earlier baptism in the Church of England remained valid. He concluded that it was a false baptism. But if his baptism was invalid, then that also meant the baptisms of Separatists like John Robinson and Francis Johnson were likewise invalid and thus unbiblical.

Hence, in Smyth’s 1609 treatise, The Character of the Beast, he calls Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and other Separatists of the same ilk and pours insult upon them: “Be it known therefore to al the Separation that we account them in respect of their constitution to be as very an harlot as either her Mother England, or her grandmother Rome is, out of whose loins she came.”^[11]

Thus after fleeing from England, separating from the separatists, and losing two-thirds of his allies (not including Johnson’s congregation), Smyth decided it was time to be baptized as a believer. Yet since he believed the churches around him had apostatized, he maintained that he could go to no other congregation or church to receive baptism. He therefore decided to baptize himself and his congregation. He did so by pouring water over his own head in an act of affusion. It was not until the 1640s that the historical record would show that Baptists baptized by immersion. Before then, pouring or sprinkling may have been the norm.

Smyth shortly thereafter believed his self-baptism was a mistake because he learned about a community of Mennonites and their Waterlander church. He discovered that they too baptized believers, and he then once again sought baptism by them. Smyth thus rejected his prior two baptisms and requested not only baptism by the Waterlanders but also to join their church. He likely also felt an affinity to this group since he had recently adopted some Arminian principles that aligned with Waterlander theology.

Smyth’s move here once again caused a rift. Thirty-one members followed him in this process, while most or all of the rest followed Thomas Helwys, who remained convinced that their self-baptism was valid. Helwys, along with his part of the congregation, also objected to aspects of Mennonite theology: particularly what they saw as an unorthodox view of the Incarnation of Christ. Probably other issues came up such as oaths and how Christians should interact with the world.

As Smyth waited for membership, he wrote a twenty-point confession of faith. The Waterlanders, however, were wary. And Smyth died in 1612 without being brought into the Mennonite community. Three years later, it appears that his congregation integrated into the Waterlander community where they appear to have lost an independent identity.

By contrast, in 1611, Thomas Helwys wrote a confession of faith to the Wetlanders to explain why he and his portion of the congregation could not become Mennonite. According to Lumpkin and Leonard, this confession “aimed, indeed, to distinguish its authors from the Mennonites.”^[12] And thus these two authors conclude that the confession “is rightly judged the first English Baptist Confession of Faith.”^[13]

Helwys, realizing that he and his congregation could not become Mennonites, returned to England to begin what we would eventually know as the General Baptist movement; it was so-called because they believed in a general atonement, that Christ died for all people, not just for particular people.

Like Smyth, Helwys also struggled to see himself as united with other Separatists or Puritans. So in A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612), he calls Puritans in the Church of England and Separatists “false prophets” and those lacking “the seal of the Spirit” because they did not baptize believers only.^[14] Likely due to this tract, Helwys was arrested and died in prison in 1616.

And yet the General Baptist movement outlived him. And by 1626, it had congregations in London, Coventry, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Tiverton. They were small. All totalled, there were about one-hundred-and-fifty members in these churches combined.^[15]

Immersion

Because Smyth and Helwys did not baptize by immersion, it is worth asking the question, how did Baptists first begin baptizing by immersion? Until the 1640s, we do not have evidence that Baptists practiced baptism by immersion. It would seem that most if not all practiced pouring or sprinkling. However, the Kiffin Manuscript provides evidence that London congregations began baptizing by immersion in the early 1640s.

The story begins in the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey Church (more on this congregation below). Henry Jessey, the pastor of the church in 1640, had an irenic approach to differences. So when Richard Blunt concluded that Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:4 implied full immersion as the means of Baptism, Jessey and others listened. However, the congregation did not know of anyone who baptized in this way. So they inquired around and discovered that a Dutch fellowship called the Collegiants in the Netherlands baptized in this way.

Share

Because Blunt knew Dutch and probably because of his interest in baptism, he travelled to the Collegiants congregation. Apparently, he was successful. When he returned, he baptized his friend Mr. Blacklock who in turn baptized Blunt and others, about forty-one all tallied.^[16]

Slowly, after this time, immersion seems to have become the norm among Baptists.

Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey Church

The second part of the Baptist story begins with a remarkable independent congregation called the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey Church after the names of its first three pastors: Henry Jacob, John Lathrop, and Henry Jessey. Henry Jacob established the congregation in 1616, and it is an instrumental congregation in Baptist history for many reasons.

First, among its peers, the church had an irenic (peace-making) culture. When they had division within the congregation, they amicably disagreed and often simply church planted from the home church. And afterwards, the withdrawn congregations would fellowship together for prayer meetings and more.

Second, perhaps because of this irenic culture, the church allowed its members to worship in Church of England churches, provided the church did not teach human tradition. In other words, they accepted that the Church of England had true churches amongst it unlike Smyth and Helwys.

And it would be from this congregation that the first Particular Baptists would emerge in London and then elsewhere. The word “particular” in Particular Baptist means that they believed Christ died savingly for the elect only; whereas, General Baptists believed Christ died for all people in the same way. We might be tempted to say: this is an Arminian and Calvinistic debate. I want to push back on that caricature.

For example, two of the most important General Baptist confessions, the confession of thirty churches in 1651 and the 1679 Orthodox Creed reject aspects of Arminianism and pave their own path.^[17] In fact, the General Baptist theologian, Thomas Grantham (1634–1692), a prodigious leader and author of an early Baptist systematic theology, could not be easily placed on the Arminian-Calvinist divide. Baptist historian Michael Haykin writes, “Grantham’s theology cannot be neatly aligned with either consistent Calvinism or the mainstream Arminianism of his day.”^[18]

So how does the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey (JLJ) church fit into the Baptist story? Well, in 1638, a year after Henry Jessey became the pastor, six members of the church became “convinced that Baptism was not for infants, but professed believers.”^[19] These six members “joined John Spilsbury” according to the Kiffin Manuscript.

Spilsbury (1593–1668) may have been a member at the JLJ congregation at one point. In any case, they formed their own congregation and stayed in good relationship with their mother church. Haykin notes, “There is evidence of joint gatherings for prayer and members of the Spilsbury congregation continued to attend meeting at the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey Church.”^[20]

Spilsbury would join a number of Independent congregations in London who came to Baptist convictions. And in 1644, seven London Baptist congregations create a confession called The Confession of Faith, Of those churches which are commonly (though falsely) called Anabaptists, which united them as an association.^[21] Of the fifteen signatories of this confession, five of them had clear ties to the JLJ congregation: William Kiffin, John Spilsbury, Thomas Shepherd, Thomas Munden, and Thomas Killcop.^[22] Further, three or four of the seven churches emerged from that congregation.

In this Confession, we begin to see the beginnings of the Baptist ideal of congregational associations. Its forty-seventh article reads:

“And although the particular Congregations be distinct and several bodies, every one a compact and knit city in itself, yet are they all to walk by one and the same rule and by all means convenient to have the counsel and help one of another in all needful affairs of the church, as members of one body in the common faith under Christ their only head.”^[23]

It is almost certain that this impulse towards unity came from the DNA of congregations like the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey church, which helped birth many Baptist congregations. And this irenic approach meant that Particular Baptists viewed pastors within the Established church and without as perfectly Christian, but incorrect on the question of Baptism.

Baptist Identity

Of course, this openness carried some liabilities. The famous pastor John Bunyan, of Pilgrim’s Progress, practiced not only open communion but also open membership. In other words, he allowed those baptized as infants to be members. Now, this is an outlier case, but it shows that some Baptists pushed the edges of Baptist identity.

On the other hand, General Baptists tended to be much more separatist and insular. Some viewed other Congregationalists and Puritans in the Church of England as antichrists, whores, and so on. Due to this inwardness, they practiced endogamy: marriage only within their congregation, which had fairly disastrous effects since it was often impossible to find someone to marry and led fractious church discipline cases.

Further, the General Baptists, because they could not agree on identity early on, struggled immensely to deal with division in their midst. So they regularly lost members to Quakers, Particular Baptists, and later to a heresy called Socinianism, which amounted to denying the Trinity.

However, due to these pressures, they also created some of the best early Baptist confessions of faith and theological writings. I think of Thomas Monck and the congregations behind the 1679 Orthodox Creed, or the writings of the great Thomas Grantham.

Thomas Grantham and others also had more openness to other Christians as well, desiring to unite with Particular Baptists. That would not happen for some time. Around 1770, Dan Taylor’s New Connection began the process of General and Particular Baptist union, which came to fruition fully in 1891. By this time, the General Baptists had undergone serious decline due to a lack of coherent theological identity and separatist bent.

It would not be until the Great Awakenings that both General and Particular Baptists would once again receive energy and growth.

Now, I could say so much more here about identity and what happens after the 1640s. Baptists grow exponentially through military service under Oliver Cromwell because they not only gained toleration but they also church planted as they warred across the country.

But because I only wanted to talk about origins, I think it may be appropriate here to make a few comments about the General and Particular Baptists, especially their names General and Particular.

Particular and General

General Baptists believed Christ died for all people. On other issues, they were split. Some believed a person could lose their salvation, others believed they persevered until the end. All agreed that God’s grace was prior to belief in some way. But whether one could fall from grace was not always agreed upon. And some (not all) denied original sin, namely, that the Fall meant that all people after Adam were born with a sin nature.

Particular Baptists maintained that Christ died for the elect, that grace always preceded salvation, that one could not fall from grace, and that everyone was born into sin. Here, it is worth noting that Particular Baptists did not adopt these beliefs in a vacuum. They shared the same Baptistic convictions as General Baptists, but they emerged from an environment that aimed to be more irenic with other Protestants. And in 1644, a common opinion in England and in Europe was that Christ died for the elect (particular atonement). So this belief, along with the others named here, was born out of this idea that Particular Baptists could work alongside other Protestants.

While General Baptists had local confessions and covenants and some uniting confessions, they tended to remain more separate from other Christians; the practice of endogamy being one such example. So we might say that the General and Particular aspects of being Baptist have their origins in whether one emphasized separatist congregationalism or whether one emphasized Independent congregationalism.

For my part, I find myself in a strange position of appreciating the General Baptist theologians like Thomas Monck and Thomas Grantham as well as their confessions, since they tend to be more careful, due to the landmines in associations, than the Particular Baptists needed to be. At the same time, I see a great need to retrieve the irenicism present among some of the independent Congregationalists, including early Particular Baptists.

We may not need to choose between the two per se, since by the end of the 17^th century, General and Particular Baptists continued to demonstrate their commonality with other Protestants. For example, Thomas Monck, a messenger (apostle) for Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, wrote a confession representing his constituency wherein he called Baptists Protestants and aimed to show how much they had in common with others.^[24] The same could be said for the Second London Baptist Confession, written in 1677 and adopted at an assembly in 1689.

Conclusions about the Origins of Baptist Theology and Practice

I want to make a few conclusions about the origins of Baptist faith and practice. Since I am limiting myself to the Baptist story in England from about 1600 to 1645, I am not generalizing about later developments that happened among Baptists. I plan to do so at a later time. Here, I only generalize about Baptists in their originating decades.

First, Baptist origins start as a protest against the Established church’s imposition of priests, worship, and its national church program. Baptists, like other Congregationalists and Presbyterians, desired to order their worship according to Scripture. Thus, Baptists believed congregations should elect their own pastors, create their own liturgy, write their own confessions and covenants, and unite around the idea of voluntary, not compelled, associations with other like-minded congregations through associational confessions.

Second, both General Baptists and Particular Baptists have their origin among the Puritans within the Church of England. General Baptists might be categorized as Separatist Congregationalists, while Particular Baptists emerge from independent congregationalism. The latter simply means congregations view themselves as Independent of the Church of England worship and organization, but they did not view Puritans within the Church of England as enemies but as allies. General Baptists tended to view paedo-Baptist Separatists, other Congregationalists, and the Church of England as heretical or apostate groups. Both groups, however, maintain that congregations have the authority to organize their own worship according to Scripture.

Third, the origins of Baptist life involved confessions and covenants. While I did not note it above, each congregation generally had their own confession of faith or they voluntarily adopted one in association with other congregations like the London Baptists did. Sometimes they did both. For example, Benjamin Keach’s congregation asked for a local church confession, which they agreed to in 1697, called the Articles of the Faith of the Church of Christ, or Congregation Meeting at Horsley-down.^[25] Congregations also covenanted together, which generally meant they agreed to live a holy and pure life. Note that this was how congregations enforced discipline, holding people to their covenant, as the Church Books of various churches illustrate.

Fourth, part of the origin story of Baptists involves church discipline. Many Puritans rejected a perceived laxity in the Church of England, and they found that separatism or independent congregationalism made allowance for congregations to be a company of visible saints. Sometimes, they went too far.

For example, Loughwood Baptist Church in the middle of the 17th century at one point had 105 members in good standing, and 38 members withdrawn for sin and disorder. That’s roughly 27% of the total congregation who were under church discipline.^[26] By the way, its church book is fascinating. In 1884, the same church records: “Whilst we were partaking of tea, Mrs. Robert French to the annoyance of all present, began to make a speech about a presentation to Mrs. Samuel French, but our pastor wisely prohibited her from doing so.” The detail here is almost hilarious, but what I find fascinating is that whoever wrote the minutes, which the congregation approved, said that “Mrs. Robert French to the annoyance of all present, began to make a speech.” Well, anyway, back to the topic.

Fifth, Baptists could either be separatist or independent, the latter meaning they viewed Puritans within the Church of England and others as allies, despite disagreeing with them. This would characterize the churches that emerged from the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey congregation. Jessey would later become a Baptist himself, but would allow members who were baptized as babies into his congregation (like John Bunyan’s congregation). But here we find a diversity of origins which, at least for their early history, points to two different trajectories for both General and Particular Baptists. Both groups early on do not appear to have worked closely together. That said, reality is messier than the categories we create. For example, the Particular Baptist minister William Kiffin saved the lives of twelve General Baptist ministers who were sentenced to death in 1664.^[27] So there must have been some camaraderie, especially during times of persecution.

Sixth, early Baptists sprinkled, poured, and then later immersed. It does not appear that most early Baptists felt that they needed to be re-baptized when immersion became the norm. Yet when immersion did become the norm, they ceased pouring and sprinkling for baptism.

Seventh, the whole Baptist movement involves non-conformity to the Church of England. They therefore sought religious toleration. And during the interregnum period, Oliver Cromwell promoted a species of religious liberty. Hence, Baptists gravitated to him and supported the republican government (1649–1660). They entered into military service and even Parliament, where they expanded rapidly. The point, however, is that, as non-conformists, they privileged religious toleration. And so religious liberty ends up becoming very important to Baptist thought and practice.

Much more could be said, but here I think I have accomplished my purpose of providing an introduction to Baptist origins. In a further article, I will talk more about Baptist beliefs at a theological level. Here, I simply wanted to share the story of origins.

Appendix 1: Three stories for Baptist Origins

The Baptist origin story is generally told in one of three ways. While each pattern has its strengths, I have opted to tell the story through the lens of English Puritanism. I believe I am justified historically in doing so, but here I will explain why I have done so in more detail by surveying the three ways people usually tell this story.

First, some point out that early Baptists desired to be biblical, and that this impulse existed throughout the entire age of the church. So one can discern traces of Baptist thought and practice in the margins. This view implies a succession of true churches always existed in the margins, sometimes through a trail of blood. Smyth evinces this tendency when he rejects his first two baptisms due to his being baptized by false churches.

The major liability with this position is that we don’t have historical evidence for it. It also seems to imply the mainstream of Christianity was either false or in grave error across the centuries. But Jesus promised to build his church (Matt 16:18). This view then seems to doubt the genuineness of most Christians, especially Christians of the Imperial Church. Yet it is important to recognize that early Christians regularly baptized adults after their confession of the faith, and upon inspection of early canons, one sees that congregations had an important role in electing their pastors. So some of the key pieces of Baptist thought are not in the margins, but in the mainstream. With all that said, this view lacks historical evidence and ultimately must be rejected.

Second, some point out that in the 1500s the Anabaptist movement already held to a believer’s church, congregational authority, a separation of church and state, and so on. This view makes a lot of sense, especially because Anabaptists were concentrated in the Netherlands, which was geographically close. And John Smyth, an early Baptist, in 1610 attempts to join a Mennonite community in the Netherlands while in exile there.

The liability of this view is that it is too narrow in its story of origins. The Lollards in England, for example, had already existed for over two hundred years before the Baptists emerged. They shared many principles. Further, early Baptists clearly emerge from Puritanism in England. That is, all early Baptists were Puritan separatists or Independents whose goal was to reform worship according to New Testament principles.

Next, all major confessions of Baptists in the early era specify that they are not Anabaptists (e.g., First London Baptist Confession of 1644 or the Standard General Baptist Confession of 1660). Additionally, Helwys’s General Baptist congregation explicitly rejected Mennonite Waterlander theology and would not join with them or receive their baptism. Furthermore, most Baptists did not appear to know much about Anabaptists in practice. For example, in 1641, Baptists sent Richard Blunt to the Netherlands to understand how the Dutch Collegiants baptized because, until this time, they poured water over each other and did not immerse. While the Collegiants may not have been anabaptist per se, they had some association with the Mennonites as an Anabaptist-like group.

In conclusion, Baptists and Anabaptists do have some historical connections, but I do not think we can explain Baptist belief and practice by only telling the origin story with reference only to Anabaptists. That story is too narrow.

Third, most today recognize that the Puritan and Separatist story best aligns with the available evidence. Baptists were Congregationalists who, in their effort to reform the church according to New Testament principles, discovered that believer’s baptism best fit their congregationalist view of the church. And it further had the benefit of being directly tied to the New Testament’s teaching. And yes: this meant over time learning about the Anabaptists who shared many of the same beliefs.

^[1] Stanley J. Grenz, Isaac Backus—Puritan and Baptist: His Place in History, His Thought, and Their Implications for Modern Baptist Theology, NABPR Dissertation Series 4 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), 1.

^[2] Michael A. G. Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” in The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, vol. 1, The Post-Reformation Era, 1559–1689, ed. John Coffey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 117.

^[3] “Browne, Robert,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson, vol. 2, Basilica–Chambers (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908), 279, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, accessed September 7, 2026.

^[4] “Browne, Robert,” 279.

^[5] William L. Lumpkin & Bill J. Leonard, eds., Baptist Confessions of Faith, 2^nd rev. ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011), 76.

^[6] “Separatists and Baptists,” 116.

^[7] “Browne, Robert,” 280.

^[8] Lumpkin and Leonard, 76.

^[9] Lumpkin and Leonard, 76.

^[10] Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 119.

^[11] Cited in Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 120.

^[12] Lumpkin and Leonard, 107.

^[13] Lumpkin and Leonard, 107.

^[14] Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 122.

^[15] Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 122.

^[16] On this, see Haykin, Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach, 25–26.

^[17] The Orthodox Creed likely had Thomas Monck as its primary author, but it represented many General Baptist congregations. On this, see B.R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (Baptist Historical Society, 1996), 93–4.

^[18] Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 136.

^[19] From the Kiffin Manuscript. Cited in Champlin Burrage, The Early English Dissenters, vol. 2, 302. I modernized the spelling.

^[20] Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” 124–5.

^[21] Baptist Confessions regularly rejected the nomenclature of Anabaptist. Consider also the Standard General Baptist Confession of 1660, which rejects Anabaptism in its opening lines.

^[22] B.R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century, 39.

^[23] Lumpkin and Leonard, “Baptist Confessions of Faith,” 157.

^[24] On Monck, see White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century, 92–8.

^[25] “The articles of the faith of the Church of Christ, or, Congregation meeting at Horsley-down Benjamin Keach, pastor, as asserted this 10th of the 6th month, 1697.” In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A47381.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 13, 2026.

^[26] See J. B. Whiteley, “Church Discipline in the Loughwood Records,” Baptist Quarterly 31, no. 6 (1986): 288–94.

^[27] Haykin, Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach, 59.

The word saraph, as in Seraphim, appears seven times in the Hebrew Bible. Three times in the Pentateuch (Numbers 21:6, 8; Deuteronomy 8:15) to describe fiery (saraph) serpents who bite. Four times in Isaiah. Twice they are flying creatures, born of a snake (Isaiah 14:29; 30:6). And twice as Seraphim around Yahweh’s throne in Isaiah 6 (vv. 2, 6).

In this article, the question I am curious about is: what are the seraphim in Isaiah 6? If every other occurrence in the Bible presents seraphim as fiery (and flying) serpents, then should we expect the seraphim in Isaiah 6 to also be serpentine?

For the rest of this article, then, I want to explore the biblical descriptions of seraphim to see if we might be able to understand what they looked like.

Saraph

The word saraph occurs only seven times in the Hebrew Bible. Its verbal form means “to burn,” which regularly appears as a verb in the Hebrew Bible. The noun saraph, as noted, only appears seven times in the Bible.

Its first three instances appear in the Pentateuch and describe saraph-serpents who venomously bite Israelites in the wilderness (Num 21:6, 8; Deut 8:15). Likely, the venomous bite felt like “fire” and hence the name saraph to describe these serpents. The other four uses occur in Isaiah and refer to heavenly beings (Isa 6:2, 6) and flying serpentine saraphs (Isa 14:29; 30:6).

The following will analyze all these passages.

Numbers 21:6–9

In Numbers 21, Israel complains in the wilderness. So God sends (fiery) serpents to the camp. After their affliction, the Israelites call out to God. God responds by instructing them to build a bronze serpent statue that will heal them.

The key verses are found in Numbers 21:6–9:

“Then the LORD sent fiery serpents [הַנְּחָשִׁ֣ים הַשְּׂרָפִ֔ים] among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷ And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents [הַנָּחָ֑שׁ] from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent [שָׂרָ֔ף] and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent [נְחַ֣שׁ נְחֹ֔שֶׁת] and set it on a pole. And if a serpent [הַנָּחָשׁ֙] bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent [נְחַ֥שׁ הַנְּחֹ֖שֶׁת] and live.”

The word saraph is used twice: first in verse 6 in which they are described as “fiery serpents,” and second in verse 8 where God commands Moses to make a saraph. Around the term saraph, the text uses serpent as a short form to describe the saraph serpent as well (21:7, 9). Afterward, when God tells Moses to make a saraph, the text calls it “bronze serpent” twice (21:9).

In other words, the text clearly uses the word saraph to describe the kind of serpent these are. They are fiery serpents, a term which probably refers to the venomous bite of the serpents which felt like heat or fire. Moses remembers these seraphim in Deuteronomy 8:15 as part of the terrors of the wilderness. But the key point is that God sent these seraphim in Numbers 21 as judgment against Israel for their sins. They are executors of God’s wrath.

2 Kings 18:4

In 2 Kings 18, King Hezekiah reforms Israel’s worship. In particular, the bronze serpent that Moses had made in Numbers 21 had become an object of cultic worship. Apparently, the bronze serpent took the name Nehushtan and Israelites offered sacrifices to it, likely to seek protection from harm (an apotropaic purpose).

According to 2 Kings 18:4, Hezekiah “broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).” While the context does not guarantee it, Nehushtan was plausibly housed in the temple.

Its existence matters for Isaiah, since Isaiah wrote during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. So for virtually all of the book of Isaiah, the Nehushtan functioned as a cultic object in Jerusalem. And by way of reminder, the word saraph appears only in Isaiah outside of the Pentateuch. So it may be that Isaiah mentions the seraphim (which Numbers calls a saraph) partly because of Nehushtan’s presence.

Isaiah 14:29 & 30:6

The most well-known passage on saraphs is Isaiah 6, a vision in which Isaiah sees seraphim guarding the throne of God in a heavenly portrayal of the temple of God. But after this event, Isaiah mentions seraphim in two other places.

The first is Isaiah 14:29 in which God gives an oracle against Philistia: “Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent [שָׂרָ֥ף מְעוֹפֵֽף].”

Here, Isaiah clearly identifies the saraph as the serpent’s fruit. Yet he adds one characteristic of the saraph that Numbers does not: it flies. The text speaks of God’s rod as broken but producing “a flying saraph” that will bring judgment.

The second use is in Isaiah 30:6 in which God gives an oracle against the wilderness between Israel and Egypt. Hence, it is likely meant to remind the Judahites of Israel’s former wandering in the wilderness. The text reads: “An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent [וְשָׂרָ֣ף מְעוֹפֵ֔ף]” (Isa 30:6).

Again, the flying saraph is correlated with a serpent (“the adder”). And again, it is spoken of in the context of divine judgment. The seraphim in Numbers 21 also come from God, as executors of his justice.

Isaiah 6

In Isaiah 6, the prophet appears before God’s throne room in heaven. Here, he only sees the flowing robe of God but can and does see his guardians: the seraphim. The text does not describe how they look except for two features: they have hands and wings. We also learn that they can speak (Isa 6:3, 7). Hence, they are rational beings.

The main activity of the seraphim involves their proclamation of God’s holiness, and they also purify Isaiah by burning his lips with fiery coal (Isa 6:6–7).

Because they have wings, they fly above Yahweh (Isa 6:2). Interestingly, on the Ark of the Covenant, the winged creatures either face each other or forward. So winged seraphim here appear in slightly different locations than the physical manifestations in the earthly tabernacle and temple.

A fascinating feature of their wings further challenges our expectations. According to Isaiah 6:2: “Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.” Notice the wings cover up the seraphim; they do not spread over God. That may indicate that the seraphim protect themselves from God, not the other way around. We may consider that God’s holiness overwhelmed them (Isa 6:3). So they cover up their vulnerable areas: faces and feet, which “probably [is] a euphemism for the pubic region” (HALOT, 1185). They fly with the other two wings.

As noted, they also take burning coal and scorch the lips of Isaiah to purify him. After one of the seraphim does so, he says, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” If this vision happened bodily (not just spiritually), then we might imagine that the effect of Isaiah’s encounter with the fire of the seraphs left him burned, damaged, but guilt-free. God eliminates sin through the seraphim, executors of his justice.

Share

Are they flying serpents?

The Seraphim thus execute God’s justice, fly, and promote his holiness. And elsewhere in Isaiah, the word saraph exclusively means flying serpent. Further, the Nehushtan, which God calls a saraph, during the timeline of Isaiah 6 (the reign of King Uzziah) likely existed in the temple precincts. And finally, the story of the fiery serpents in Numbers 21 shows that God uses them to execute justice just as he does in Isaiah.

This brings up the question of just how the seraphim look. The text tells us only that they have a hand (to bring the coal; Isa 6:6) and wings. So we are left to imagine just what they look like. My suggestion is that the Bible so far has exclusively used the word saraph to refer to fiery serpents or flying fiery serpents, and so it seems reasonable to think of the seraphim as serpentine creatures who execute God’s justice.

They can bring pain or forgiveness, like the seraphim bring pain or healing in Numbers 21. Their bites bring fire; but the vision of the saraph on the pole brings healing. Likewise, a saraph in Isaiah 6 brings both pain and forgiveness to Isaiah. So putting these pieces together, I think we can speculate as to their form.

Indeed, I am not sure we are speculating much; when all other occurrences of saraph in the Bible refer to fiery serpents; and all other uses in Isaiah refer to flying fiery serpents; and in Isaiah 6, we have a scene of flying seraphim who bring fire; then I feel as though we are sound in concluding: the seraphim are flying serpentine creatures of God who bring justice.

In a work of imaginative scholarship, Esther J. Hamori likewise describes the seraphim of Isaiah 6 as serpentine creatures:

“As in Isaiah’s other two references to winged seraphim, these creatures are serpentine. He doesn’t need to spell this out, since this is what seraphim already means, including in Isaiah’s own mentions of earthly winged snakes, as we’ve just seen. While the stories in Numbers and Deuteronomy use the double noun seraphim-snakes, Isaiah never does. In his oracles referring to the winged snakes of the desert, he simply calls each a “flying seraph.” These heavenly seraphim have bizarre additional features that he needs to describe, but their basic serpentine nature isn’t one of them, because that part’s a given” (God’s Monsters, 29–30).

In other words, she argues that their serpentine form is “a given” because all other uses in the Bible describe seraphim as fiery (and flying) serpents.

I tend to agree, but I must say this is only a tentative conclusion as I consider the various spiritual beings in the Bible. So it is at least fun to think that seraphim might be dragons!

If you are curious, I am also offering a fully online class on the Old Testament this Fall that you can audit by clicking the button below:

Audit

In the Pentateuch, God reveals himself through three names: Elohim, El Shadday, and Yahweh. Each name is associated with a different covenant (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic) and is accompanied by a covenantal sign (rainbow, circumcision, sabbath).

By discerning this pattern, we can be better readers of the Old Testament. At times, God will reveal himself under a certain name to indicate a relationship. For example, in Psalms 42–83, the psalmists overwhelmingly use the name Elohim for God because the psalms concern God’s relationship to the world. Indeed, God, Elohim, created heaven and earth (Gen 1:1).

This is just one example of why discerning God’s names matters. At the same time, we should not overinterpret the significance of different names. Genesis 4:26 speaks of people calling upon the name of Yahweh; and this is way before God reveals himself as Yahweh to Moses in the burning bush (Exod 3:14). I have written on that topic here; for the rest of the article, I want to discern patterns of God’s name in the Pentateuch in order to sharpen our grasp of the text, elucidate its meaning, and know better the God who reveals himself in Scripture.

Names in General

Names in the Bible reveal something about the person that they name. Adam’s name represents him as being from the ground, adamah (Gen 2:7). Eve’s name means that she is the mother of all living (Gen 3:20). So when speaking about God’s names in Scripture, we can think of them as revealing something true about God’s character. This would be true of names like El Shadday, Elohim, and Yahweh alongisde the various other names for God in Scripture.

Covenants & Signs

In the Bible, God makes covenants with individuals, creatures, or peoples. A covenant is a binding agreement that has a sign that symbolizes that agreement. For example, God promised by covenant never to destroy the earth with a flood of water again and gave the sign of the rainbow to signify that promise (Gen 9:11, 13).

It is my argument that specific names of God have a particular tie to both a covenant and its sign in the Pentateuch. Again, this does not mean God ceases to be Yahweh just because the name Elohim better fits the Noahic covenant. It only means that a specific name of God better fits a covenant, one in which God’s character can be seen more clearly.

Theodore Lewis, in his The Origin and Character of God, schematizes this relationship, and I follow his basic line of thinking.

_{Adapted from Theodore J. Lewis, The Origin and Character of God (2020), 225, fig. 6.2.}

Noahic Covenant, Elohim, and the Rainbow

In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah in which he reveals himself as Elohim and gives the sign of a rainbow:

8 Then Elohim said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you ... 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And Elohim said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. …16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between Elohim and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 Elohim said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

God’s name here repeatedly is Elohim because his covenant has to do with all creation. Likewise, Genesis 1 uses the name Elohim to speak of God creating heaven and earth. That said, Genesis 2:4 still identifies Elohim with Yahweh; but the focus is on the name Elohim. Here, we see a similar pattern.

Further, the covenant is made with the whole creation: “with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth” (Gen 9:9–10). So the covenant is a universal covenant with the created order of both rational creatures and non-rational animals.

Hence, the name Elohim particularly fits here. As well, the covenant is called “the everlasting covenant,” which is signified by the “bow” (Gen 9:16). We shall see again and again that God’s covenants have eternality as their characteristic. This, I think, has larger implications for the power and permanence of God.

Abrahamic Covenant, El Shadday, and Circumcision

In Genesis 17, God reveals himself to be El Shadday and makes an eternal covenant with Abraham, whose sign is circumcision:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am El Shadday; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” … 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. … 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.”

El Shadday covenants with Abraham to bless his offspring and the world through his offspring. The covenant, once again, is an everlasting covenant. And circumcision is its sign.

The transition in names from Elohim to El Shadday seems to mark a relational change from God’s universal relation with the cosmos (Elohim) to his relationship with the family of Abraham (El Shadday). Later, God would reveal himself as Yahweh as his special name for the people of Israel.

As Exodus 6:2–3 recounts: “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shadday, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them.” Again, this does not mean God was not Yahweh in Genesis nor that he never used the name Yahweh; rather, it speaks to how God reveals himself in specific covenants: Elohim, El Shadday, and finally Yahweh.

As to the meaning of El Shadday, the later Greek and Latin tradition rendered El Shadday “God Almighty.” But most admit that we do not know the precise meaning of the term. Some think it means God of the steppes, mountains, or some other like designation.

Whatever else, the name indicates God’s power to work in and through the family of Abraham to bring blessing to a world suffering under the curse of sin and corruption. El Shadday would later rename Jacob Isra-El after him, signifying that El is the God of Israel (cf. Gen 33:20).

Share

Mosaic Covenant, Yahweh, and Sabbath

The third key covenant in the Pentateuch occurs in Exodus when God reveals himself as Yahweh and makes a covenant with Moses/Israel. The covenant occurs primarily in Exodus 19–24, but two other places give helpful summaries.

First, Exodus 6:2–3, as noted above, shows that God now reveals himself as Yahweh even though he used to reveal himself to the Patriarchs as El Shadday. Second, Exodus 31:16–17 speaks of the Sabbath as the sign of the eternal covenant:

Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.

The phrase “covenant forever” translates the Hebrew phrase bĕrît ʿôlām, which is the same phrase rendered “everlasting covenant” in Genesis 9:16 and 17:7.

As to the meaning of the name, likely we can find something of it when God reveals his name to Moses in Exodus 3:13–15:

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

The key phrase here, “I am who I am,” renders the Hebrew ehyeh asher ehyeh. It is an unusual construction, but one that seems to specifically define who God is. He is the one who is, the existent one. Perhaps the name draws into itself the implication that God exists and brings others into existence (Elohim) and is the same El Shadday who walked with the Patriarchs.

In any case, I tend to see the name Yahweh as following the Hebrew verb hyh/hwh, which signifies God’s basic characteristic of existence, his permanence. The sabbath then becomes the sign of the eternal covenant made with Israel.

Conclusion

God is Elohim, El Shadday, Yahweh, El Roi, El Olam, Adonai, and a host of other names in Holy Scripture. These names reveal something about God, and some of them have particular associations with covenants and signs.

I tend to see God revealing himself as Elohim in relation to the world, El Shadday to the Patriarchs, and Yahweh to Israel. These names are not exclusive to these categories or covenants, but are specially related to each category through a covenant and sign.

The upshot is that we can read Scripture more coherently, more clearly discern the meanings of God’s names, and be drawn into the character of God.

Also, you can audit my class on the Old Testament this Fall by clicking the button below.

Audit

God said to Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shadday, but I did not make known my name Yahweh to them” in Exodus 6:3. After Exodus 3:14 and 34:6–7, this may be the most important revelation of God in the book of Exodus. It tells us that God’s pre-Exodus name was El Shadday, but he now reveals himself with the name Yahweh to Moses, and thus to Israel.

The last word, Israel, is important since God (El) names Jacob Isra-el because he is El or El Shadday. Indeed, in Genesis 35 Jacob calls the place where El meets him “El-bethel” (Gen 35:7), and then El renames Jacob Isra-el (Gen 35:10) before identifying himself in the next verse as “El Shadday” (Gen 35:11: אֲנִי אֵל שַׁדַּי).

So here Jacob calls the place of El “El-Bethel,” is named Isra-el, and God proclaims, “I am El Shadday,” all within a few verses of each other (35:7, 10, 11). Unfortunately, these connections that help make sense of Exodus 6:3 are glossed over in many translations that render El Shadday as God Almighty.

While both words are fair translations in and of themselves, they mask the reality that El means God but refers to the specific God who created heaven and earth, El; and the title Shadday, although difficult to pin down exactly, does seem to indicate God’s almightiness, at least that is how the Septuagintal translators took it when they used the Greek word pantokrator to render the Hebrew word shadday.

But El is clearly a name just as Yahweh is in some places. The generic word for God is elohim, whereas El less commonly refers to God in general and, in places like Genesis 35 and Exodus 6, refers to an appellation.

Subscribe now

Why El before Yahweh?

So why did God reveal himself first as El before Yahweh? And why do passages like Genesis 14:22 mention the name Yahweh when he did not reveal himself as Yahweh until Exodus 3? The second answer is much easier than the first, and I will opine on it in due time. But first let me discuss the initial question of why El before Yahweh.

The best place to answer this question is Genesis 14:17–24, where we encounter Melchizedek, who is called priest of El Elyon throughout the narrative. My translation of this passage goes:

“[17] Then the melek of Sodom went out to meet Abram when Abram returned from smiting Chedorlaomer and the kings who accompanied him at the Valley of Shaveh, that is, “the valley of the king.” [18] Now, Melchi-Zedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. (He was a priest to El Elyon). [19] So Melchi-Zedek blessed him, and he said, ‘May Abram be blessed by El Elyon, the creator of heaven and earth! [20] And may El Elyon be blessed, who delivered your enemies into your hand!’ So Abram gave Melchi-Zedek a tenth of all the spoils.

[21] So the melek of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people, but you keep the property for yourself.’ [22] Abram replied to the melek of Sodom, ‘I will raise my hand to Yahweh, El Elyon, who created heaven and earth: [23] ‘I will not take a cord or a sandal strand nor would I take anything from you,’ so that you may not say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ [24] I will take nothing except what the young men ate and the portion for the young men, who came with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their portion.”

In this passage, we observe three remarkable points. First, the God whom Abraham serves, the one who created heaven and earth, is El Elyon.

Second, Melchi-Zedek of Salem, whose name means king of righteousness and whose city signifies “peace,” serves El Elyon as a priest-king. This suggests the obvious point that when Abram came to the Promised Land, others besides him knew God who created heaven and earth. It further points to the expected reality that some people and places preserved God’s original revelation of himself and presumably other forms of continuous revelation (nature, dreams, etc.).

Herman Bavinck makes a similar argument in his essay, “Common Grace.” He believes that all religion takes its form from an original revelation of God, but becomes corrupt over time. That may be; and it would explain why cities in the environs of Israel worshipped El in their pantheon. But by contrast, both Melchi-Zedek and Israelite worship centre on the one God of Israel, El who is also known as Yahweh.

Third, and perhaps difficult for us to accept, because of Exodus 6:3, Abraham calls El Elyon, Yahweh, and identifies this one God as the creator of heaven and earth. Hence, the many titles and names for God in Scripture do not testify to various entities but rather various ways to describe God.

I will pause for a moment on answering how this might be the case, and instead here focus on my answer for why El precedes Yahweh as the way God made himself known. I suspect the answer has to do with El being a common name for God in his original revelation of himself to the Fathers and world. Yahweh is God’s specific name that describes who he is as Israel’s God.

When Moses asks God, “Who shall I say sent me,” God answers “say I AM WHO I AM has sent you” (Exod 3:13, 14). The verb “I am” in Hebrew ehyeh (1st person singular) sounds like yahweh, which approximates the third person singular form of hwh, an older byform of hyh (hence yhwh). The meaning of this name becomes clear during the Exodus, but it includes Yahweh being the God of the Fathers (Exod 3:13) who was known as El Shadday (Exod 6:3).

The texts in Exodus 3 and 6 need not mean that God never went by the name Yahweh at all; but rather, that Yahweh was the name that God specially revealed to Israel to describe who he is for them. He is I AM WHO I AM, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who is self-existent and magnificent (e.g., Exod 34:6–7).

By analogy, when Jesus comes, we stop calling God El or Yahweh, because we know him as our Father. That does not mean we must utterly cease calling him El or Yahweh, but only that we know him first as Father.

To oversimplify matters, God is El to all creation, Yahweh to the nation of Israel, and Father to his adopted family, the church. Obviously, the Father remains Yahweh and El, and so this is more of a question of a mode of revelation than of any essential difference in God. This schema is also only a general observation, one that has parallels. For example, Psalms 42–83 often concern the nations and almost exclusively use the name Elohim for God, not Yahweh. It is not because God has ceased to be Yahweh but largely has to do with the mode of revelation to the nations.

By the time Israel returns to Canaan, after around 400 years in Egypt, it appears that things have changed greatly. No Melchi-Zedek exists who worships El Elyon, who is Yahweh. Instead, revelation may have been corrupted to the point where the name El simply referred to one God amongst a pantheon of others, including the most famous Canaanite god: Baal.

So why do the Patriarchs use the name Yahweh?

We can imagine a number of reasons why this might be the case. First, we could simply say that the authors of Scripture did not aim to be accurate in recording the speech of biblical figures or were not theologically aware of the differences. But nobody who has spent time studying the text of the Pentateuch could make that claim in good conscience.

So, second, we might say that God revealed himself primarily as El to the patriarchs, even though the name Yahweh also existed secondarily. Evidence for this view is that Abraham evidently uses the name Yahweh (e.g., Gen 14:22). Further, the primacy of El seems guaranteed in the simple observation that Israel is so named Israel, as well as the various self-designations that God makes of himself as El Shadday (e.g., Gen 17:1; cf. 28:3; 48:3).

Consider also that when Jacob wrestled with God, he called the place Peni-el; and he called the place El-Bethel (Gen 35:7) before his name was changed to Israel (Gen 35:10). Jacob tells Joseph that God appeared to him as El Shadday in Luz (i.e., where Bethel was according to Gen 35:6) in Genesis 48:3. One last example (of which many more could be offered): when a pregnant Hagar flees from Sarai, she meets God, who names her son Ishma-el. She then calls God El Roi, El who sees.

A third possibility is that Moses knew that El was Yahweh and simply placed his name where appropriate in the Genesis narrative. My daughter knows me as Dad, but she may tell a story later in life where she calls me Wyatt in order to make sense to her audience. This is the same thing, the same reality.

Conclusion

The Bible is stranger than we imagine. English translations by necessity interpret the text, and we sometimes are left without God-given puzzles to solve. But the Bible has many such puzzles. God gave them to the curious so that our minds might be rewarded by seeking him.

While I write this article on God, I am aware that my solution to the puzzle is not mainstream. Most historians of the religion of Israel would find alternatives to mine above. Be that as it may, we cannot as Christian thinkers avoid the gifts that God gives us in Scripture such as is found in Exodus 6:3. It seems we have left the spade work on such questions to historians of Israelite religion. I would much rather see that work as an historical source for the work of understanding the theology of the Bible.

***

By the way, you can audit my course on the Old Testament this Fall by clicking the button below.

Audit

Protestants, like Christians before them, viewed natural law as a component of reality. Hence, Protestant Reformers wrote over fifty commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics between 1529–1682.[1] Aristotle’s work had laid the foundation for all future work on virtue ethics in the West. The foundational nature of the Ethics explains why so many Protestants commented on the text.

Within the natural law tradition of Protestants, I tend to find useful the writings of Richard Hooker (1554–1600), Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562), Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600), and Girolamo Zanchi (1516–1590).

So for the purposes of this article, I would like to recount Zanchi’s view as a representative position on natural law amongst early Protestants (Confession of the Christian Religion 10, pp 83ff; On the Law in General, ch 2., pp 9ff). Afterwards, I will give three basic conclusions for Christian ethics.

Zanchi on Natural Law

First, Zanchi believes God created humans in his image, with an original holiness and righteousness.

Second, Zanchi argues that due to the Fall into sin, humans lost their original righteousness and holiness.

Third, Zanchi points out that God has not left himself without a witness, and so by his grace, communicates not only his divine nature but also his divine law in our hearts after the Fall.

Fourth, Zanchi maintains that this general grace comes in greater or lesser degrees to humans, and that our own sin and corruption can prevent us from fully realizing/acting on this gracious gift of natural law.

Fifth, Zanchi warns we must distinguish between natural desires for what is good and our sinful inclinations, citing Romans 7:23 in evidence (Law, 17): “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”

Sixth, Zanchi identifies the Ten Commandments as an equivalent to natural law (usually called Moral Law).

Seventh, Christians have the law written on their hearts (Jer 31:31–34), and thus have a full or complete grasp of God’s law. Hence, Zanchi can conclude, “natural law is one and the same among all nations if we look at its presuppositions, not at its conclusions or applications” (Law, 22).

This point is the key: the basic presuppositions (central principles) remain consistent (e.g., “do no harm”) but the various conclusions drawn or applications of this principle can look quite different.

Share

Proofs for Natural Law

Zanchi’s observations come both from Scripture and nature.

Scripturally speaking, Paul, for example, says that all people know God’s invisible attributes because God has shown it to them:

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:19–20).

First, what can be known about God is his invisible attributes, which include his eternal power and divine nature. Second, they are perceived “in the things that have been made” because “God has shown it to them” in those things. Third, Paul concludes that no human has an excuse for not worshipping God because God has actively revealed himself to all people. He will say something quite similar in Acts 17 as well.

When it comes to natural morality, Paul likewise affirms that those who sin among the Gentiles know the divine command of God when it comes to right and wrong: “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Rom 1:32).

How do they know this righteous decree? Zanchi believes Romans 2:14–15 explains this natural morality in the same way that Romans 1 had explained our natural theology: God reveals not only his divine nature but also his moral law to the conscience by writing it upon our hearts. Thus, Paul writes:

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law [of Moses], by nature do what the law [of Moses] requires, they are a law [i.e., a rule] to themselves, even though they do not have the law [of Moses]. They show that the work of the law [of Moses] is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom 2:14–15).

This law written on their hearts represents God’s moral demands. Here, law does not mean anything like legislative law, but something like a rule or a guide. Consider the ways Paul uses the word law in Romans 7:21–23:

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

Law here means something more like inner impulse or desire. This natural desire for the good, which sin and ignorance corrupt, Zanchi believes is summarized by Jesus in places like Matthew 22:37–40 or in the golden rule of Matthew 7:12, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Now this rule, Zanchi notes, is common among the nations. As he notes of the golden rule, “In fact, it had also been a law among the Gentiles—the words of Emperor Severus were heard and inscribed everywhere, ‘Do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you’” (Law, 19). He provides other examples, but what he demonstrates is that the moral demands of the law and prophets have their equivalent amongst the nations (see also Tobit 4:15).[2]

This is also the argument of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) in his The Abolition of Man, where he shows that the moral commands of natural law are known across the globe in their basic premises. He calls it the Tao. And it really is hard to deny some sort of common standard at the premise level. But as Zanchi notes, the conclusions or applications vary across place and time.

Conclusions for Ethics

First, just because someone argues from natural law does not mean either their conclusions or applications are correct. As to the first, they may err in logical argument. As to the second, they may reject God’s clear commands or twist them to suit their passions and desires. Natural law says nothing about human ability or consistency; only that humans know God’s righteous decree (Rom 1:32).

Second, Christians nevertheless can draw upon common principles like the Golden Rule or “do no harm” to appeal to people in general. Given God’s general grace to all people to write on their hearts the law of God, we can reasonably expect people to desire the common good and sometimes achieve it. This explains why we have safe roads, schools, and plumbing. In principle, we do not want to harm our neighbours, but do good to them.

Third, we should expect those who believe in natural law to, through sin, corrupt good premises and make outlandish conclusions: sometimes this looks like racist or sexist claims of superiority; at other times, it can justify “might makes right.” But people abuse revealed truths in Scripture for evil ends; how much more should we expect them to abuse natural law?

[1] David S. Sytsma, “Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Protestantism,” Academia Letters, article 1650 (July 2021): 3, https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1650.

[2] Interestingly, Christopher Nolan too describes xenia in Homer’s Odyssey as fundamentally the same as the golden rule. See https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1vdGK6GEQE/ or:

What did worship and Baptism in Jerusalem look like in the fourth century? Egeria, a woman likely from Spain, gives us a detailed record of what happened.

Egeria came to Jerusalem in the early 380s. For a bit of context, it’s worth noting that Christianity had become legal as of 313. Some years later, it would become the privileged religion in the Roman World. And Constantine and his mother, Helena, sponsored church building projects in Jerusalem. Jerusalem increasingly became therefore a centre of Christianity, although it of course always was.

The church in the city had a few unique traditions. For example, Lent in Jerusalem lasted 8 weeks because they only fasted for five days (excluding Saturday and Sunday).^[1] Thus, 40 days occurred in 8 weeks. And the season of Lent played a special role for those entering Christianity. These 8 weeks would prepare them for Baptism on Easter (called Pascha), where they would enter into the Church publicly.

Yet the whole church participated in Lent. According to Cyril, it was a time of confession, of turning to God as we await Resurrection which happens on Easter. So Baptism and the Easter season, we might say, together represented a key moment in moral formation as a pair.

And Egeria witnesses what happened with great detail.

She explains: “I feel I should add something about the way they instruct those who are to be baptized at Easter. Names must be given in before the first day of Lent, which means that a presbyter takes down all the names before the start of the eight weeks for which Lent lasts here” (ch 45).

Egeria continues: “Once the priest has all the names, on the second day of Lent at the start of the eight weeks, the bishop’s chair is placed in the middle of the Great Church, the Martyrium [i.e. the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre complex], the presbyters sit in chairs on either side of him, and all the clergy stand. Then one by one those seeking baptism are brought up, men coming with their [god]fathers and women with their [god]mothers” (ch 45).

So the bishop and elders would receive baptismal candidates who would come alongside their spiritual fathers and mothers. They would go specifically to the Martyrium, a place associated with Christ’s death, since baptism meant that one dies with Christ according to Romans 6.

Then something interesting happens. The bishop asks friends and associates about the moral life of the baptismal candidates:

“As they come in one by one, the bishop asks their neighbours questions about them: “Is this person leading a good life? Does he respect his parents? Is he a drunkard or a boaster?” He asks about all the serious human vices. And if his inquiries show that anyone has not committed any of these misdeeds, he himself puts down his name; but if someone is guilty he is told to go away, and the bishop tells him that he is to amend his ways before he may come to the font” (ch 45).

Basically, since Baptism meant one’s entrance into the body of Christ, the bishop wanted to make sure candidates had counted the cost.

Once past this point, candidates would spend 8 weeks in biblical teaching, the Creed, and daily exorcisms, which in practice amounts to moral formation.

Egeria explains:

“They have here the custom that those who are preparing for baptism during the season of the Lenten fast go to be exorcized by the clergy first thing in the morning, directly after the morning dismissal in the Anastasis. As soon as that has taken place, the bishop’s chair is placed in the Great Church, the Martyrium, and all those to be baptized, the men and the women, sit round him in a circle. His [i.e. the bishop’s] subject is God’s Law, during the forty days he goes through the whole Bible, beginning with Genesis, and first relating the literal meaning of each passage, then interpreting its spiritual meaning. He also teaches them at this time all about the resurrection and the faith. And this is called catechesis. After five weeks’ teaching they receive the Creed, whose content he explains in the same way as he explained the Scriptures, first literally and then spiritually” (ch 46).

After worship in the Anastasis, a church in Jerusalem associated with Christ’s resurrection, mornings of Lent would involve exorcisms, Bible teaching, and instruction in the Creed. Notice that the whole Bible was taught literally and spiritually: “His [i.e. the bishop’s] subject is God’s Law, during the forty days he goes through the whole Bible, beginning with Genesis, and first relating the literal meaning of each passage, then interpreting its spiritual meaning.” It is vital to know that this was the norm in the early church.

The Creed, here, a Creed very similar to the Nicene Creed would affirm the Father, Son, Spirit, and Church in line with the Bible’s teaching. Christians understand the Creed as a Rule of Faith whose teaching was contained in the apostolic writings.

Regarding exorcisms, this may sound strange until one understands what this meant. Erase Hollywood movies from the mind. Exorcisms generally involved the word of Faith and the renunciation of the devil and all his works. We might say when Biblical teaching created conviction over sin, then candidates would renounce their sin, that is, the devil and his works. One can think of the Lord’s Prayer as a kind of exorcism as well (“deliver us from the Evil One”).

Then around 9 a.m. or the third hour, the catechumens are dismissed, and everyone returns to the Anastasis: “At nine o’clock they are dismissed from Catechesis, and the bishop is taken with singing straight to the Anastasis” ( Ch 46).

The time is important because, as Egeria explains: “So the dismissal is at nine, which makes three hours’ teaching a day for seven weeks” (ch 46). So for the first seven weeks, candidates received about three hours of biblical education daily—remember not on Saturday or Sunday.

When Holy Week comes, that changes. Egeria notes:

But in the eighth, known as the Great Week, there is no time for them to have their teaching if they are to carry out all the services. So when seven weeks have gone by … the bishop comes early into the Great Church, the Martyrium. His chair is placed at the back of the apse, behind the altar, and one by one the candidates go up to the bishop, men with their [god]fathers and women with their [god]mothers, and repeat the Creed to him” (ch 46)

So here, we might say, the preparation comes to a close. And the final component was reciting the Creed, a summary version of what the Bible teaches.

It is possible to reconstruct the Creed from the titles of Cyril’s Baptismal Catecheses. It reads:^[2]

Egeria continues:

“When they have done so, the bishop speaks to them all as follows:

“During these seven weeks you have received instruction in the whole biblical Law. You have heard about the faith, and the resurrection of the body. You have also learned all you can as catechumens of the content of the Creed. But the teaching about baptism itself is a deeper mystery, and you have not the right to hear it while you remain catechumens. Do not think it will never be explained; you will hear it all during the eight days of Easter after you have been baptized. But so long as you are catechumens you cannot be told God’s deep mysteries” (ch 46).^[3]

So the candidates enter the Martyrium, the place of Christ’s death to confess their faith as they await their entrance into the Church. Later, they will worship at the Anastasis, the place of resurrection, as they participate in life.

But first they must be baptized to enjoy the full participation of life. And so the bishop invites them to be Baptized on Easter Sunday, which begins the Easter Octave, the eight days of Easter (Sunday to Sunday). Each day they will receive further illumination as they learn about the great mysteries of godliness.

^[1] Lent is a later word. It was usually called some variant of the word “forty”; thus, in Latin, Quadragesima and in Greek, Τεσσαρακοστή.

^[2] Greek text from PG 33:331–1180; translation from Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, 161–63. Cited in The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, trans. Maxwell Johnson, 24–25.

^[3] Egeria, Itinerarium 45–46, quoted in The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, introduction, 22–24.

The Didache is an early second-century document that traces traditions back to the first century in Syria or Palestine. In other words, it is a Jewish-Christian document that testifies to one region’s experience of faith. That said, when compared with slightly later documents from Egypt, Rome, and Syria, it fits into a common tapestry of early Christian thought.

As a document, the first ten chapters describe moral preparation before baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The last six chapters detail various ecclesial matters such as how to receive a travelling preacher or prophet or the importance of forgiving one another before Christians come together on the Lord’s Day. For our purposes, I am interested in the first ten chapters and what they say about moral preparation for baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Why? Because for virtually all early Christians, baptism represented one’s union with Christ and entrance into his body, the church. So believers took it upon themselves to count the cost of baptism by contemplating the way of following Jesus.

To do so, the Didache opens by laying out two ways, a way of life and a way of death. The way of life leads to baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and paradise. The way of death leads to destruction (Did 5:1). Here, I want to lay out these two ways to give a sense of what early Christian moral formation looked like and to understand what this community believed must be understood before baptism.

The Way of Life

The first two verses of the Didache read:

“There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways. 2 The Way of Life is this: “First, thou shalt love the God who made thee, secondly, thy neighbour as thyself; and whatsoever thou wouldst not have done to thyself, do not thou to another” (Did 1:1–2).

Note how the way of life is described. The authors basically cite Jesus in Matt 22:37–40 and 7:12, where Jesus specifically summarizes the law and prophets as the duplex love of God and neighbour and as doing to others what you want them to do to you. So here, we can already see that the way of life for early Christians began with the teachings of Jesus, especially his summaries of the Law and Prophets.

The two ways of life idea certainly has precedent in places like Psalm 1, but it seems clear that it flows from Jesus who called himself the Way and invited sojourners to follow him through the narrow gate and way that leads to life (Matt 7:13–14).

Then the Didache leads to the commandments that guide one to life, which more or less follow the Sermon on the Mount as well as broader biblical patterns.

First, it tells us to love our enemies and avoid taking revenge (1:3–6). We might call this the positive way of life—what to do. Here, one can see the Sermon on the Mount summed up in various ways as well. And that will be common throughout the Didache.

Second, the Didache turns to the commands found in the Decalogue (Didache 2:1–7), and includes New Testament teaching as it does so. These twenty-plus commands tend to be negative; they tell us what not to do while the commands in the first part of the Didache tell us what to do.

In Didache 2:1–2, the document includes particular pastoral applications of the commands as well which probably testify to early Christian pastoral concerns:

“But the second commandment of the teaching is this; “Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery”; thou shalt not commit sodomy; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use magic; thou shalt not use philtres; thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide; “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.”

The prohibition against sodomy, magic, the use of philtres (drugs, potions), abortion, and infanticide must have been pastorally important to this community, since they exist as applications of the commandments. The authors aimed to tie commands to specific pastoral concerns.

So for example, in Greek, “Thou shalt do no murder” translates οὐ φονεύσεις, which then connects to two kinds of murder, according to the Didache: οὐ φονεύσεις τέκνον ἐν φθορᾷ, οὐδὲ γεννηθὲν ἀποκτενεῖς. The first translates “you shall not murder a child in the womb” and the second is that “you shall not slay what is born.” The latter was important because in the larger first-century world, some parents would abandon infants to exposure when they were unwanted.

In the third chapter, the Didache takes the mantle of Proverbs upon itself and advises children (like Proverbs) to live wisely and trust God. Thus, Didache 3:1–2 reads, “My child, flee from every evil man and from all like him. Be not proud, for pride leads to murder, nor jealous, nor contentious, nor passionate, for from all these murders are engendered.”

The section ends with a call to virtue and trust in God:

“be thou “meek, for the meek shall inherit the earth;” be thou long-suffering, and merciful and guileless, and quiet, and good, and ever fearing the words which thou hast heard. Thou shalt not exalt thyself, nor let thy soul be presumptuous. Thy soul shall not consort with the lofty, but thou shalt walk with righteous and humble men. Receive the accidents that befall to thee as good, knowing that nothing happens without God” (Did 3:7–10).

Didache 4 ends the instruction on the way to life with various ethical commands that guide Christians in how they treat their leaders, the poor, their families, and the Lord.

The Way of Death

The way of death is given in much simpler form, a sort of list of ways of death that do not correspond to the faith, which is a way of life. So Didache 5:1–2 says:

“But the Way of Death is this: First of all, it is wicked and full of cursing, murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries, witchcrafts, charms, robberies, false witness, hypocrisies, a double heart, fraud, pride, malice, stubbornness, covetousness, foul speech, jealousy, impudence, haughtiness, boastfulness. Persecutors of the good, haters of truth, lovers of lies, knowing not the reward of righteousness, not cleaving to the good nor to righteous judgment, spending wakeful nights not for good but for wickedness, from whom meekness and patience is far, lovers of vanity, following after reward, unmerciful to the poor, not working for him who is oppressed with toil, without knowledge of him who made them, murderers of children, corrupters of God’s creatures, turning away the needy, oppressing the distressed, advocates of the rich, unjust judges of the poor, altogether sinful; may ye be delivered, my children, from all these.”

Summary of the Ways

Didache 6 then summarizes the discussion on the two ways: “See “that no one make thee to err” from this Way of the teaching, for he teaches thee without God. For if thou canst bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou wilt be perfect, but if thou canst not, do what thou canst. And concerning food, bear what thou canst, but keep strictly from that which is offered to idols, for it is the worship of dead gods” (Did 6:1–3).

At this point, the Didache turns to baptism, fasting, and the Lord’s Supper, which tends to be called the Eucharist in this document.

Implications

First, the Didache lays out a Way of Life that begins as one prepares for baptism and continues without end.

Second, the Didache begins with Jesus and his commands, although it pulls from broader apostolic teaching. Still, almost every line can be connected with the Sermon on the Mount or Jesus in some way.

Third, the Didache applies the Way of Jesus in very specific, pastoral ways. The warnings of magic, potions, abortion, etc. point to the community’s need to think carefully about moral formation, ethics, as one enters the Way of Jesus.

Fourth, the Didache evinces an early catechumenate (membership classes), which solves a problem implicit in the New Testament: how do you know someone is coming to faith genuinely? The answer was: make sure they count the cost of following Jesus.

Fifth, the Didache may be an early document, but it more or less agrees with later documents of moral formation across the Christian world: in North Africa, Asia, and Rome. And then of course, later in the Medieval and Protestant communions, we have a basic continuity when we read the catechisms or moral and theological handbooks of these eras.

According to Severus of Al’Ashmunein (fl. 955–987), before Cyril of Alexandria (376–444) was called to pastoral ministry, he first entered the Egyptian desert. There, he memorized the Bible in Greek. Why? Presumably, Cyril and his patriarch Theophilus felt that Cyril needed to have the primary text of Christianity memorized before he could guide the souls of those under his care.

Severus explains, “the patriarch [Theophilus] sent [Cyril] to the Mount of Nitria, to the desert of Saint Macarius. And Cyril dwelt there five years in the monasteries, reading the books of the Old and New Testaments; for Theophilus urged him to apply himself assiduously to his studies, saying to him: «By these studies thou wilt some day arrive in Jerusalem on high, which is the dwelling-place of the saints». … so Cyril learnt all the Scriptures by heart.”[1]

Further, Cyril read the books of the New Testament regularly at night, such that Severus records: “during most of his nights he would read through in a single night the Four Gospels, and the Catholic Epistles, and the Acts, and the first Epistle of the Blessed Paul, namely, that addressed to the Romans; and on the morrow after this, Cyril’s teacher would know, by looking at his face, that he had studied all night.”[2] The effect was that “he learnt by heart all the canonical books.”

Now, this account of Cyril was written about 500 years after he lived in Arabic, and so we might be tempted to think of Severus’s account as being more legend than reality. And while we cannot discount the hagiographic elements, nothing in this account would feel out of place in the fifth century when it comes to Scriptural devotion. And it minimally testifies to 10^th-century Christian views of Scripture.

Notice in this account Cyril’s face changed, reminding one of Moses whose face became glorious when he communed with God on the mountain; and it reminds one of Paul in 2 Corinthians 3–4 who says that as we see the face of Christ in Scripture, we move from one level of glory to another, pointing to the story of Moses’s glory as precedent. In short, this was a common trope.

And so Cyril would not have been alone in his devotion to Scripture. Consider the words of Augustine, who writes, “I will read the Holy Scripture with complete certainty and confidence in its truth, founded as it is on the highest summit of divine authority” (Letters 1–82, 393–94).

As far as I can discern, this basic approach to the Bible was the norm in the early centuries—actually, it really does not stop being the norm up until this day!

[1] Severus of Al’Ashmunein, History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, trans. B. Evetts, Patrologia Orientalis 1 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904), 427–28, https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/severus_hermopolis_hist_alex_patr_02_part2.htm.

[2] Patriarchs, 428.

All Christians must pass through the archway of the Sermon on the Mount. But as history shows, there are many ways to approach these gates. In this article, then, I want to lay out what I understand to be a traditional pathway to the Sermon, so that readers might see Jesus’s words as summoning us upon his Way (John 14:6) as followers of the way (Acts 9:2).

My argument is simple: the Sermon on the Mount is the constitution for the Christian life, the way in which we follow Christ along the Way. While simple, I believe the implications for this view are staggering once realized. So, before we ascend the Mount with Jesus, I would like to first explain what I do not mean by my argument concerning the Sermon.

Way 1: A Righteousness Impossible to Reach

First, some argue that the Sermon on the Mount points to a righteousness that is impossible to achieve, which draws us to the Gospel where God justifies us by faith. Evidence for this view is the high standard of teaching that Jesus gives and passages like, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). Historically, this view is often associated with Martin Luther, albeit he had considerable nuance here through his two-kingdom approach to the passage.

In my judgment, this position rightly identifies an effect of the Sermon, namely, to draw us to Christ who saves us by faith. But it wrongly identifies the intent of the Sermon. Part of this has to do with a linguistic complication over the word “perfect.” We often use the word perfect today to mean moral perfection, but the English term translates teleios, which has more to do with completion or fullness.

Further complicating the picture is the English rendering of the word makarios as “blessed” in the Beatitudes. The English word “blessed” translates two distinct Greek terms eulogetos and makarios, the latter being what Jesus uses in the Beatitudes. The first usually refers to God (or someone) blessing another in concrete ways. God blesses us with sunshine, harvest, and cheer. The second (makarios) refers to the quality or state of someone—they are blesséd (not merely blessed by God with sunshine).

So the way to perfection in the Sermon comes by way of being makarios, blesséd, or as I like to translate it, happy. To be happy in this sense has little to do with feelings since Jesus quite readily speaks about being happy when people revile us (Matt 5:11). That surely would not feel good, but it would be good because we would be reviled for righteousness and Jesus’ sake (Matt 5:10, 11).

Way 2: The Ethics of the Kingdom

Second, some argue that the ethics of the Sermon belong to the kingdom, a kingdom that has not yet come. The idea here is that Jesus teaches how we will live in the eschaton in the present. It is a sort of idealism now, but reality in the future. Others locate the presence of the kingdom in us as the community of Jesus. Both views obviously draw upon Jesus’s frequent refrain “the kingdom of heaven” (e.g., Matt 5:3, 10).

As to the first sub-view, I see no reason why Jesus’s ethics here must be in the future rather than now. Even if they were pointing towards the future kingdom, why would we not live in present as we will in the future? Further, Jesus only promises that we will receive the kingdom (Matt 5:3, 10), and so we might say that the ethics presuppose a hopeful reward. In fact, Jesus says as much, “your reward is great in heaven” (Matt 5:12).

As to the kingdom ethics view in the present, I basically agree. However, twentieth-century presentations of kingdom ethics have sometimes abstracted Jesus’s teaching on the Sermon from both natural law and other places in Scripture (e.g., Paul). I see continuity in what Jesus teaches here with Paul, natural law, and the kingdom of heaven.

Further, sometimes this view tips into a strange solipsism whereby Jesus’s ethics here are absolute values that must be obeyed as duty or obligation for followers of the Way. But I do not think Jesus here is merely giving law casuistry, but rather that the Evangelical Law of Jesus comes by way of wisdom because Jesus uses language and arguments appropriate to a sage, not a legislator of detailed casuistry.

This, I think, is clear when he chooses to use words like happy (makarios) or perfect (teleios) which are at home in sapential teaching. Further, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches in parables and sayings which are, again, appropriate for the sage. Actually, the genre of Matthew (and the Four Gospels) is bios, a common genre of writing for wisdom teachers in the ancient world.

Jonathan Pennington explains, “This habit of bios writing was firmly established by the time of Jesus and had proven to be a very efficient and effective way to present a philosopher’s teaching, manner of life, and, especially important, the way in which the person died with dignity” (Jesus the Great Philosopher, 18). The genre of the Gospel Books thus lends itself to seeing Jesus as a teacher of wisdom and truth, not as a writer of casuistry.

Way 3: The Way of the Some

Third, some associate the Sermon with individuals, the church, or some smaller set of people. The idea here is that Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). So the kingdom does not pertain to political orders. And something here is surely correct since Paul clearly says that the magistrate “is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4). So God, according to Paul, authorizes authorities to use the sword to execute God’s vengeance, but the Sermon tells us to turn the other cheek (Matt 5:38).

This duality created a complication for many early Christians. Many Christians saw the Sermon on the Mount’s call to non-vengeance as central to Christian morality. For the most part, this meant, for example, that governors were not usually allowed to become bishops because of the “sword.” Hence, Ambrose of Milan’s (339–397) transition from governor to bishop was an awkward one. It is worth noting that in the ancient Roman world, governors were expected to quell revolt by first torturing, then finding the truth. This level of violence from governing authorities therefore exceeded what we might expect of a magistrate today.

Further, the Sermon on the Mount’s morality also challenged Christians to think about military service. Could a Christian serve as a soldier? At least early on, Christians found military service a difficult task because it required killing and usually idolatry, but Jesus quite straightforwardly summons people to turn the other cheek and calls Christians to worship God alone. So Tertullian famously in De Corona argued that it is not meet for a Christian to serve in the military (§11).

However, Christians did not agree on a pacifist consensus, and the question of military service at least had more to do with idolatry than non-violence per se. So we might say that the Sermon on the Mount’s call to nonviolence created a tension, but one that Christians eventually worked out through the process of practical wisdom. Christians could indeed be magistrates, but in that office, they must act as Christians; and the same would be true of soldiers.

For the most part, I find this arrangement to be workable because, again, the Sermon on the Mount as the Evangelical Law (more on that below) calls us to practical wisdom since biblical law, in general, is sapiential. That is what makes it worthy of meditation (e.g., Ps 1:2). If it were simply a list of rules of casuistry, then there would be no need to meditate on it once someone had mastered the content of the legislation. Jesus, like Moses before him, is a sage, a law-giver whose words engender meditative reflection (Josh 1:8).

Each of the above patterns of reading the Sermon on the Mount carries obvious truths, but I think each does not tell the whole story. For that reason, I would like to propose that the Sermon on the Mount is a constitution for the Christian life, an Evangelical Law, exteriorly given in the Gospel but interiorly written on the heart by the Spirit; a law spoken by Christ but more inward and joy-inducing than any merely external law could be.

Way 4: The Way of the Sage

Fourth, many—if not most—Christians have read the Sermon on the Mount as a constitution for the Christian life. The Sermon itself and Jesus’s teachings in general present him as a teacher of righteousness, a giver of wisdom and truth. He tells parables, speaks in aphorisms, invites hearers to contemplate his meaning, and seeks to speak truth.

The language of the Sermon itself also lends itself to this conclusion. Jesus summons hearers to a narrow way of righteousness (Matt 7:13–14). He opens by pointing to a life that can be characterized as happy, a makarios life. First-century hearers could not have missed the resonances with moral and sapiential teaching that was then current. The Lord calls people to righteousness (“the good”) and calls us to become perfect or complete (Matt 5:48).

All of this is in the context of a pursuit of truth, for Christ is truth (John 14:6). And the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who walk the way of Jesus, who is the Way. In short, this way of reading the Sermon includes aspects of the above three but sees Jesus as a sage who teaches us how to live the righteous and happy life, one characterized by virtue that leads to flourishing.

In the Gospel of Matthew, this sermon is set in contrast to Jesus’s final public teaching in Matthew 23:13–31 (so K. C. Hanson, How Honorable! How Shameful!, 102). As Hanson notes, “the makarisms in Matthew 5 and reproaches in 23 form an inclusio on Jesus’s public ministry” (102).

This structure in Matthew’s Gospel suggests a sapential reading of the Sermon because Jesus’s first major teaching and his last public teaching seem to parallel one another:

Adapted from K. C. Hanson, How Honorable! How Shameful!, 102.

Thus, we have two ways of life contrasted, a way of righteousness that is inward and true and the appearance of righteousness, which is outward and false. One way of life hungers and thirsts for righteousness, while the other does not. Seeing God is the destiny of the first; Gehenna the second.

I believe the textual evidence points us towards this way of reading the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus teaches us how to live the happy life, a life that constitutes our moral pathway as Christians. To make sense of this, the following discusses certain key concepts that Jesus and Christian theology use to help us read the Sermon along the path of human flourishing.

Happy (Makarios)

The Beatitudes are so titled because of the Latin term beatus or beatitudo, which means happy or perhaps fortunate. By contrast, benedictio often refers to blessing in Latin. So these are two different words in Latin: one means happy and the other means blessing.

All of this follows a translation tradition at least as old as Jerome (347–420), who translated the New Testament into Latin from Greek. Jerome translated the Greek word makarios with the Latin term beatus. And he generally translated the Greek word for blessing, eulogeo, with some form of benedico. In other words, happy and blessed are two different terms in both Greek and Latin. The same is true in Hebrew where happy can translated the word ashre while blessed usually translates some form of the Hebrew word brk. These Hebrew words map unto their Greek (near) equivalents: ashre/makarios and brk/eulogeo.

The problem is that in English, we conflate the two. We use the word blessed to translate two different words in Greek (makarios and eulogeo). So we struggle to know just what Jesus means in the Beatitudes due to this quirk of the English language. Obviously, makarios and eulogeo overlap in a lot of ways, as do their Hebrew equivalents. In fact, Jeremiah can use the word “to bless” (brk) in ways that approximate the asheristic passages like Psalm 1 (e.g., Jer 17:7). Yet the distinction still matters because one word (makarios/ashre) more readily describes the quality of a person, while the other (eulogeo/brk), when used of God and his people, speaks of covenantal blessings.

It is also worth noting that in the Beatitudes, Jesus uses a common form of a Beatitude from the Old Testament. For example, In Psalm 1, the psalmist uses the form ashre, not brk when he says, “Happy [ashre] is the man who … ” (Ps 1:1). Jesus translates this form of ashre with makarios, which is how the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation of Ps 1) translates ashre.

In Hebrew, ashre generally refers to the state or condition of one who can be called ashre, while brk has a much broader use, including being part of the covenant blessings of God for rain, crops, and so on.

So Jesus by his word choice clearly follows a traditional pattern of thinking in the Hebrew Bible, familiar to those who heard it read in the synagogue. He also would make sense to a Greco-Roman audience who likewise used the word makarios to describe the quality or character of a person, a near parallel to Ancient aspiration of eudaimonia, flourishing.

All that to say, Jesus begins his Beatitudes by introducing the idea of happiness, flourishing, being the kind of person whose quality of life can be called happy. Remember: happy here is not primarily the emotion of elation, but rather a life characterized by virtue: being poor in spirit, meek, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, merciful, pure of heart, and peacemakers. Divine favour is not absent, however, but is precisely the point. Hence, those who are discouraged will receive encouragement (Matt 5:4).

And in this context, the word encouragement matters because Jesus is not giving us a rigorous law-code, but rather speaks to the heart, to someone who inwardly desires the kingdom and thus encouragement is how Christians ideally exhort one another to love and good works (e.g., Rom 12–15).

Perfect (Teleios)

When Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48), we intuitively think he means moral perfection as in we have to follow every rule without fail. And if that is the standard, then nobody could ever attain what Jesus commands in this Sermon.

But the word Jesus uses, teleios, and the way he uses it tells another story. First, the word itself does not mean perfection as in dotting every i or mathematical precision. More generally, it speaks of something reaching completion, maturation. “In the Septuagint all the instances of teleios mean ‘unblemished, undivided, complete, whole’” (Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 76).

For example, the ashre psalm, Psalm 1, describes the happy man as a tree that slowly grows and brings out its fruit at the right time: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Ps 1:3). That is the perfect and happy human being. The happy human is like a tree that completes its course, bearing fruit in due season.

That I think describes the happy person beautifully. The kind of person who is happy is like a tree nourished by the waters of the Spirit, who grows little by little and bears the fruit of the Spirit.

A little later in the sermon, Jesus says: “You will recognize them by their fruits. … every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit” (Matt 7:16–18). Here, we learn the difference between the blessed one and the wolf (Matt 7:15); the former is a good tree, and this inward health produces good fruit; the wolf is a sick tree, inwardly diseased, and thus produces bad fruit.

“Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matt 7:16), asks Jesus. And the answer is, of course, no. Only a good tree produces grapes. This word-picture shows us the character and quality of the blessed or happy person. They grow slowly like a tree, nourished by years of water, and thus in due season produce good fruit (also John 15:1–11).

Evangelical Law

If the happy person grows by the waters of the Spirit like a tree, then what role does law play? After all, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them…. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:17, 20).

Jesus thus fulfills the Law and exhorts us towards righteousness, something that the happy person hungers and thirsts for (Matt 5:6). His words further advance the Ten Commandments by pointing out how we must not merely avoid adultery but also lust; not merely avoid murder but also hatred. The Ten Commandments themselves implied an interiority since the tenth commandment forbids desiring what we ought not to desire (Exod 20:17).

But Jesus interiorizes the Law. Yes, he teaches exteriorly with words, but the point of his law is to enter into the heart. And this leads to joy: “rejoice and be glad” (Matt 5:12). As Jeremiah 31:33 promises in the new covenant, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (repeated in Heb 8:10). And it is this covenant and law that Jesus gives.

Thomas Aquinas will speak of this new law upon the heart as being of grace and particularly constituted in the Holy Spirit: “the New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy Spirit, which is given to those who believe in Christ” (ST I–II, Q106.A1). In evidence, he cites passages like Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus.” This Evangelical or Gospel Law amounts to the gift (grace) of the Spirit, given to us, who writes God’s law unto our hearts.

And remember the register we are using for law: law not as a mathematical formula of rights and wrongs but as a way of wisdom. The grace of the Spirit infuses our hearts in the form of love (Rom 5:5), so that we might love God and neighbour as ourselves, thus fulfilling the Law (Rom 13:8). This inward change whereby the Living Waters nourish us leads us to manifest the fruit of the Spirit, which results in the kind of life called happy, makarios.

But Isn’t This Legalism?

I have argued that whatever Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount constitutes the Christian life, internalized by the Spirit who writes this Evangelical Law upon our hearts so that we might grow into a good tree. That is what a happy person is, according to Jesus. We can thus obey Jesus fully, and be called perfect—complete, whole.

We indeed must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees to receive the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20). Now, I have often heard that this command demonstrates how impossible it is to be righteous as Jesus commands us to be.

But are we reading the same Bible?

The scribes and Pharisees throughout Scripture are presented as outwardly but not inwardly righteous. Of the scribes and pharisees, Jesus says, “you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt 23:28).

Following this connection to Matthew 23, Augustine comments that “the justice of those who say and do is greater than that of the Scribes and the Pharisees. In fact, in another passage, the Lord Himself makes the following remark about the Scribes and Pharisees: ‘For they talk but do nothing’” (Augustine, Two Books of Retractions 1.18.4). In other words, according to Augustine, the Scribes and Pharisees are hearers but not doers of the word.

So it seems quite clear to me that Jesus tells us to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees by not being outwardly righteous in appearance but rather by inwardly having the Evangelical Law written upon our hearts by the grace of the Spirit.

So nothing here implies legalism or that God does not save us by grace through faith, but Jesus rather explains what it looks like to be saved, to be walking on his way of Life. It is the constitution of the Christian life.

Freedom for Excellence, not Freedom of Indifference

We here need to slow down for a moment to ask a bigger philosophical question, a question that determines how we understand Jesus’s commands. That question has to do with how we understand the relationship between freedom and law.

To begin with, Servais Pinckaers insightfully contrasts two kinds of freedoms, which have implications for what it means to obey laws. The first is the freedom for excellence, which means that we naturally desire what is good and thus any true laws help us to attain what we genuinely desire. The second kind of freedom is the ability to choose between contraries (right or left, blue or green, etc.).

Now most everyone thought about freedom in the first way until the middle of the last millennium. So that meant freedom involved bringing one’s natural desires to completion, to perfection (teleios). Hence, Jesus says, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Sin itself is slavery; righteousness is freedom, the freedom to fulfill our natural desires. In this case, freedom means freedom for excellence, to be happy, perfect, and thus righteous. So, an external law would be just when it matched one’s internal desire for righteousness and could be viewed as an educator or pedagogue. In Paul’s language, “the law was our [educator] until Christ came” (Gal 3:24).

External laws that are just correspond to our natural inclinations, and so our wills follow from our natural desire for the good. Freedom meant freedom from ignorance and sin, towards knowledge of what is good and the ability to carry it out. In short, freedom meant righteousness.

During the Middle Ages, other ways of thinking about freedom became popular. Philosophers such as William of Ockham began to speak of freedom as one of indifference, of being able to choose between contraries. Thus, people began to think of the will as primary, as prior to our natural inclinations towards the good. And divine law was increasingly seen as an arbitrary set of rules given by God that our will must obey.

Eventually, philosophers like Immanuel Kant would speak of morality as a categorical imperative: we do what is right, apart from any motivation beyond its rightness. This absolute morality did not attach itself to our natural inclination towards the good, which law itself aids, so that we might gain what we naturally desire but sin prevents us from seeing or willing righteously. Instead, we choose between contraries based on conscience or some absolute standard.

So these two ways of seeing freedom transform our moral imagination. And depending on one’s starting point, it also changes what might seem obvious in the Sermon on the Mount.

If we take the classic conception of freedom for excellence, we can see quite readily that Jesus summons us to happiness, to fulfill our natural desire for the good. On the other hand, if we assume a freedom of indifference, we might more readily see Jesus talking about rules, of dos and do nots. We might be ready to see Jesus calling us to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees as about doing more right things than they do.

However, as argued above, Jesus more readily fits the paradigm of freedom for excellence, and this is how Christians, as far as I can discern, had read the Sermon on the Mount until the late Middle Ages. To see this, we can turn to Augustine’s reading of the Sermon on the Mount as a representative example.

The Constitution of The Christian Life

Augustine will say, “If anyone piously and earnestly ponders the Discourse which Our Lord Jesus Christ delivered on the Mount—as we read in the Gospel according to Matthew—I believe that he will find therein, with regard to good morals, the perfect standard of the Christian life” (Augustine, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount bk 1, ch 1).

And this perfect standard is not one of specific legislation, but of perfect wisdom. Thus, when speaking about the peacemakers who are blessed, Augustine writes, “This is the life of a man of consummate and perfect wisdom. The prince of this world, who rules over the perverse and disorderly, has been cast out of a thoroughly pacified and orderly kingdom of this kind” (Matt 5:9). Here, Augustine sees the blessed or happy person as one whose life is characterized by “consummate and perfect wisdom.”

Indeed, each beatitude Augustine sees as a gradation that ends in a life of moral perfection or completion (Sermon, bk 1, ch 3).

And hence, when Jesus says one must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees to receive the kingdom of heaven, Augustine simply agrees: “This means that you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you fulfill not only those least commandments of the Law—which are merely rudimentary prescriptions with regard to a man’s moral development—but also those which will be added by Me; for I have come, not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it” (Sermon, Bk 1, ch 9).

For example, Augustine contrasts the rudimentary prescriptions of the Pharisees with Jesus’s additions: “The justice of the Pharisees is that they shall not kill; the justice of those who are to enter the kingdom of God is that they shall not become angry without cause. Not to kill is, therefore, the least commandment, and whoever breaks it will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Sermon, Bk 1, ch 9).

As to Jesus’s command to be perfect as God is, Augustine simply says, “This is to be understood in the sense that God is perfect as God, and that a soul should be perfect as a soul” (Sermon, Bk 1, ch 21). It is obvious to him that a perfect soul is one who has climbed the gradation of perfection as enumerated in the Beatitudes, and this alone happens when God gives us the gift of God’s love (i.e., the Spirit).

Share

The Archway into the Christian Life

I believe we misread the Sermon on the Mount when we think of it primarily as giving obligations that we must do or as an impossible standard that we cannot reach. Both readings of the text have elements of truth in them, but they only tell a partial story and miss the message that Jesus aims to tell us.

My view of the Sermon centres on the idea that Jesus calls us to a kind of life that leads to happiness. Further, I see the New Law that he gives as a sort of pedagogue or instructor for us as we increasingly internalize the Evangelical Law that the Spirit brings into our hearts. The written words of Jesus guide us so that we might become pure in heart and thus see God (Matt 5:8).

In my view, then, I see the Sermon on the Mount as not only the archway into the ethical life but also the constitution for the Christian’s life in Christ. Or in Augustine’s language, it is “the perfect standard of the Christian life.”

The goal of happiness both matches our creational desires and the gracious end of knowing and enjoying God for which we were made. God created us to desire Him, to be perfect or complete in the knowledge of him. So when we pursue good things in this life, we pursue the good things of God.

Sin interposes itself between us and goodness by introducing the ignorance of darkness into our minds and by twisting our desires, so that we find ourselves doing evil. Such evil amounts to sin against God and nature, the latter being the way God created us to flourish and, in this sense, it is also against God.

When Jesus says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt 5:6), he is not speaking against nature; rather, he is telling us what we were made for. That is why, when we put on the new self, Paul can say we are “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24). Sin meant we lost this original righteousness, but we still desire it because that is what we were made for.

Why then do we desire goodness? The answer is obvious; it is because everyone desires happiness, and the only way we can find lasting happiness is to hunger and thirst for something that can satisfy us: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt 5:6). And God alone can ultimately satisfy: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8).

This satisfaction and vision of God result in joy, despite our circumstances: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt 5:12). In other words, the happy life that Jesus commends to us has its end in God and his righteousness (or kingdom); and it results in joy, a joy that is indefatigable because it does not rely on bodily health, peace, or prosperity. It relies instead on poverty of spirit: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3).

Blessed or Happy are the poor in spirit because God will satisfy their natural hunger and thirst for righteousness and thus usher them into joy, even while persecuted. So Augustine will write, “And this is the happy life, to rejoice unto Thee, from Thee, on account of Thee: this it is and there is none other” (Confessions, 10.22.32).

This is why the deceit of sin or unrighteousness is so profoundly anti-human. We think we shall be satisfied by lust, hatred, accumulating wealth, and external religion, but they twist our original desires for the good by inserting deficient, evil, and twisted desires that both offend God and also mar our nature, making us unhappy and joyless.

Jesus by contrast summons us to walk the narrow path of life, so that we might become good trees, allowing the sap of the grace of the Spirit to slowly bring health to our limbs. We enter into the joy of our salvation; we rejoice always; we give thanks in all situations. For our happiness relies not on bodily health and wealth but upon the treasure that waits for us in heaven.

And here I must make a polemical point. I disagree with any moral argument that says we must desire good things without motivation, with a pure desire to do the right thing. Really? Does not the structure of the Beatitudes tell us we do good precisely because what is good is good for us? Does not Jesus tell us our “reward is great in heaven” (Matt 5:12)?

The idea that we must do categorical good apart from any motivation for reward is anti-human, against nature and foreign to God’s ordering of the world. God made us naturally to desire goodness, ultimately Himself, so that we, knowing him, might become happy and full of joy. I am here not advocating for hedonism, but only that we must pursue God and his gifts to fulfill our natural desire, a desire that God himself placed in our souls.

The Spirit infuses God’s love into our hearts, our inner selves (Rom 5:5), so that we desire (in the mode of love) God and his good creation. “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim 4:4). So I love God’s created world, and I love the Creator of this world. The duplex love of God and neighbour requires us to be lovers of life (Matt 22:37–40).

And hence, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt 5:43–48)

So we must love for the reward of being sons of God, and yet this reward is the same thing as saying we will become happy or blessed and thus will rejoice and be glad.

Jesus as a teacher of wisdom gives us Evangelical Law in the Sermon on the Mount. As his Word comes to us, the Spirit works inside of us to transform our heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Slowly then we grow like a tree, nourished by living water, so that we bloom Spiritual fruit in due season.

The various commands of Jesus against lust, hatred, greed, and so on correspond to our natural desires that sin so often suppresses; but fidelity in marriage, love of all, and treasures in heaven satisfy our truest longings for God and his goodness. All other perceived goods fall short, leading us to misery. We would not be happy. But like the hypocrites, we should expect to hear the woes of Jesus rather than the makarisms of our Redeemer.

We no longer live in a thoroughly Christian culture. Friedrich Nietzsche’s madman may have been right after all. If God is dead, we must revalue everything. The God of the Bible no longer sits supreme; and so we must revalue morals and create our own meaning. We make our own identities, values, and self-worth. Yet as we do so, we find ourselves struggling to find significance. Nothing seems to make sense.

In short, we live in a time of re-creating or revaluing all morals and meaning, which has the consequence of making life feel meaningless. It doesn’t make sense.

And this means Christian apologetics can no longer only emphasize the historicity of the faith (although this is good to do). Rather, we must also show how Christianity makes sense, how the faith genuinely teaches us what it means to be human in contrast to the shallow theories that we have created in place of the one’s revelation supplied.

It is not that there are no religious expressions today; it’s that there are too many. And everyone chooses as he or she wills. But it does not fit together. All is fragmented; all is diverse; all falls to pieces.

And hence we live in a world akin to the second century when apologists like Clement of Alexandria showed how the Word of God came at the fullness of time and how the thousand religious expressions of Greco-Roman society did not fit together, did not make sense. He was a master sense-maker.

In this article, then, I want to reflect on the life and writings of Clement in order to show how his approach to apologetics may be integrated into our approach today.

Share

Clement of Alexandria

Born in about AD 150, Clement ranks among the great lights of second-century Christianity. He was a Presbyter and teacher at the Alexandrian catechetical school. The latter probably was more informal than the modern word “school” implies. Simon Wood explains, “We might compare it to a modern study club, meeting in a private home without formal class or public pretensions, vigorous in its search for truth” (Christ the Educator, ix)

Yet it cannot be doubted that Clement had a brilliant mind. Having immersed himself in the canon of Greek literature, he was at home quoting long passages of Homer and Plato just as easily as he could Holy Scripture. His intellectual capacity made him an effective apologist of Christianity within a world that was intellectually skeptical of the faith, sometimes even hostile. One example of this hostility involved imperial persecution of some Christians under Septimius Severus in AD 202.

Clement likely fled Alexandria during this period of persecution because we hear of him carrying a letter from Alexander in Jerusalem to the church in Antioch in AD 211. Likely, he died sometime shortly thereafter since the same Alexander wrote to Origen some years later, speaking of Clement and Pantaenus, as those who “have trodden the road before us” (cited in G. W. Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, xiv).

Conversion And Influence

We know little about his conversion, but it seems clear that he grew up in a household that valued education. His grasp of Greek literature, philosophy, and religion suggests that he acquired this knowledge as a youth in Alexandria, presumably before his conversion. Of the latter, we do know that he wandered many lands, seeking knowledge and teachers. He found six who spoke plainly; these Christian teachers, almost certainly including his predecessor at the Catechetical school in Alexandria, the aforementioned Pantaenus, led to his conversion and ascension to the office of Presbyter in Alexandria.

That he came into contact with six teachers of Christianity in the mid-second century evinces how Christianity expressed itself during its early ascent. At this time, it still remained a minority faith, yet increasingly, as Clement shows, Christianity began to see itself as a player on the world’s stage. The early Apologists—Quadratus, Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Melito, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Clement—all show the faithful not standing on their back foot but advancing the message of Christ into a skeptical and sometimes hostile culture.

Perhaps the two most famous of Clement’s pupils were Alexander (c. 170–251), bishop of Jerusalem, and Origen of Alexandria (c. 184–254). The latter, probably being the most influential Christian in the third century, not only for his apologetic work (Contra Celsum) but for his textual, biblical, and theological writings. As Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “Origen is the whetstone of us all.”

Writings

Of his many writings, we have in full four: an exhortation to the Greeks to believe in Christ (Protrepticus), the Instructor (Paedagogus) that instructs in how to live a holy life, Stromata, which covers diverse topics within Christianity, and a literary sermon entitled “Who Is the Rich Man that Shall Be Saved?” Fragmentary records of other works exist, and unfortunately, others have been lost to the sands of time.

Yet the extant works provide a rather full introduction to his thought. Here, I am mostly interested in his Protrepticus because it aims to persuade unbelieving pagans to abandon Greek worship of the gods in favour of the one true God, the eternal Word from the Father. His basic question throughout might also be summarized: how does Christianity understand itself in a non-believing culture that is skeptical to the Faith?

I believe North Americans have begun to enter into a similar time period. The Venn diagram of Christianity and culture has increasingly spread apart, so now Christian claims feel suspect, and sometimes even hostile to culture.

Exhortation to the Greeks

In his Exhortation, Clement cites numerous pagan writings and traditions. His mastery of the Greek canon—of Homer and Plato especially— makes this work somewhat unique amongst the apologetics writings of the second century. Methodologically, he shows from the canon of the Greeks that their gods are not morally good, or even gods at all—he polemically calls them the true atheists since they worship demi-gods or daemons. The latter was important because some of the intelligentsia among the Greeks argued that there was one God and the Greek gods were lower beings.

Further, Clement outlines how the various names, traditions, and contradictory stories of the Greek deities show them to be a confusing mess of traditions. Granted, he admits that some Greeks received glimmers of truth by which he mostly means Plato and the Platonists.

By contrast, he points to Christianity as the truth, using John’s title for Christ, the Logos, to show that Christ illuminates us so that we might live by reason and free ourselves from the chains of passions, which lead us to sin and death.

In many ways, he will use the common language of his day to show that God and Christ answer the true longings of the soul. At one point, he even applies titles of Zeus to God to show that God, not Zeus, is the great ruler of the cosmos.

At the heart of his writing, however, is Christ: “The Word, who alone is both God and man, the cause of all our good, appears but lately in His own person to men; from whom learning how to live rightly on earth, we are brought on our way to eternal life” (Exhortation to the Greeks, ch. 1, p 17). Indeed, this eternal Word who took flesh to himself brings salvation to us by removing the chains of passions, conquering death, and bringing the light of knowledge to our dark and ignorant minds.

Incarnation And Salvation

Among his favourite ways of describing God, he will speak of him as lover-of-mankind (philanthropos; e.g., p 55). This title will appear again in the writings of Athanasius, showing that Clement’s influence might still have been felt in the fourth century.

Out of this love for humanity, the Word of God became human, so that we might receive salvation. This gracious gift, for Clement, looks primarily like a regeneration of the human person: in other words, salvation means eternal life, yes, but one that looks like holiness, freedom from the passions of the flesh, and the darkness of ignorance.

In one pointed passage, Clement appeals:

“At the price of a little faith He gives thee this great earth to till, water to drink, other water to sail on, air to breathe, fire to do service, and a world to dwell in. From hence He has granted thee power to send forth a colony into heaven. All these great works of creation and gracious gifts He has let out to thee in return for a little faith.

Again, men who believe in wizards receive amulets and charms which are supposed to bring safety. Do you not rather desire to put on the heavenly amulet, the Word who truly saves, and, by trusting to God’s enchantment, to be freed from passions, which are diseases of the soul, and to be torn away from sin?

For sin is eternal death. Surely you are altogether bereft of sense and sight, spending your lives, like moles, in darkness, doing nothing but eat, and falling to pieces through corruption. But it is the truth, I say, which cries, “Light shall shine out of darkness.” Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man, in his heart; and let the rays of knowledge rise, revealing and illuminating the hidden man within, the disciple of the light, friend of Christ and joint-heir with Him; more especially since there has come to our knowledge the name, worthy of all honour and reverence, of one who is a good Father to a good and dutiful child, whose precepts are kindly, and whose commands are for His child’s salvation. He who obeys Him gains in all things. He follows God, he obeys the Father; when erring he came to know Him; he loved God; he loved his neighbour; he fulfilled God’s commandment; he seeks after the prize; he claims the promise.

It is ever God’s purpose to save the flock of mankind. For this cause also the good God sent the good Shepherd. And the Word, having spread abroad the truth, showed to men the grandeur of salvation, in order that they may either be saved if they repent, or be judged if they neglect to obey. This is the preaching of righteousness; to those who obey, good news; to those who disobey, a means of judgment.” (Ch 21, 246–7)

Here, we see a master class in showing how Christianity makes sense by using the symbolic world of his audience. He points out the strangeness of amulets from wizards that have little benefit and points to Christ, who alone can save us, and who can transform us.

The Greek gods, he has argued, cannot do this; nor can the greatest of the philosophers. Only the Word from the Father can. He has shown how Greek custom does not make sense of reality and save us—but God in Christ does.

Sense Making

Why I believe Clement and the other early apologists matter today is because they make sense of Christianity and show the emptiness of pagan thought. This, I think, has returned to central importance today.

We no longer have a Christian culture whose primary need is evidence or arguments to confirm the faith. It remains important to know that the Bible has many ancient manuscripts to support it and that eyewitnesses saw the resurrection, but those questions assume a sympathetic or interested posture to Christianity.

Today, we instead deal with indifference, ignorance, skepticism, and even hostility to the Faith. For this reason, showing how the Way makes sense and how other ways do not matters more than it has in years; we must be like the second and third century apologists again.

Arguably, this approach is the kind of thing Peter advocates for in his First Epistle:

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” (1 Pet 3:14–17)

Peter has encouraged his readers in this manner through the letter, and he here provides the apologetic principle: a holy heart, a gentle answer, and a proclamation of the hope within (Christ resurrected). All of this in the context of the Romans persecuting or at least being hostile to the Christian faith.

Yet Peter commends not only rational defence but also holiness (“it is better to suffer for doing good”). Here, I think, is another area where the early apologists can help us make sense of Christianity. They tie belief with practice; truth with holiness.

Thus, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” and “being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” bind together into a union of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

Clement takes this approach to heart, models it in a later context, and shows us how we might unite holiness and a gentle defence of the faith today. We are once again in the age of the apologists. By looking to the past, to Clement and others, we can find resources to make sense of the Faith today. And sense-making is the need of the hour, more than anything else.

On May 15th, Pope Leo XIV published an Encyclical Letter called Magnifica Humanitas (noble humanity). As part of the ordinary teaching authority of the church, it lays out the church’s response to the “new things” of this age. In particular, this encyclical draws on over a century of Catholic Social Teaching. It applies this teaching to the realities of concentrated corporate power and the ever-expanding use of artificial intelligence in society (§96).

Within Catholic Social Teaching, a number of core principles underlie social action. In the context of Magnifica Humanitas, these are “the inalienable dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and social justice” (§96). In light of these premises, Magnifica Humanitas argues for a prudential and humane approach to emerging technologies like AI.

This is an important point, and it matters for reading Magnifica Humanitas. The letter works from certain principles (noted above) by an act of pastoral prudence. This method or approach does two things. First, it ensures that the encyclical can be applied in diverse places and times; and second, it shows by action a particularly human way of being and thinking. In short, the framing of the letter is humane as well as the recommendations.

While readers online accused the letter of being anti-AI, Magnifica Humanitas instead warns against the uncritical adoption of AI and advocates for a prudential approach to this emerging technology. In Pope Leo XIV’s words, “Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family” (§106).

From this vantage point, Magnifica Humanitas uses the biblical imagery of two cities: Babel and Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time, when the walls were yet to be rebuilt. The former shows what happens when we advance too far without regard for humility; the latter shows how each family must come together to build the wall. This parable underscores Catholic teaching and provides a fundamental image for society in the age of AI. “The construction of Babel or the rebuilding of Jerusalem begins within each one of us” (§130).

And so Magnifica Humanitas ends with a parable, calling the Church to rebuild the walls of the city:

Nehemiah heard the cry of a devastated city, brought that pain to prayer, discerned before God, asked for help, received permission to return, organized the work, confronted internal and external resistance and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with the assistance of the people, brick by brick.

In this era of digital transformation, I see in him a striking parable of our own vocation, which is not to be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history — research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities — in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened. Like Nehemiah, we too are called to unite listening and courage, prayer and responsibility, so that, even when a technocratic mentality or partisan interests seem to prevail, the human city may become a more fitting place to live. (§241)

Notice here the call is not to retreat from technology but to build.

So while Leo XIV does not believe technology is neutral [“technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it” (§8).], he also realizes that it is not the use of technology but the vision that underlies it which makes it good or bad.

As he explains: “From the perspective of the Church’s Social Doctrine, the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy” (§117). So human beings are not mere machines, efficiently placed into a system for economic gain. Humans should not be viewed in machine terms, whether as workers or projects for transformation into some new thing.

In other words, a transhuman view of salvation may end up just abolishing what it means to be human. Or more pointedly, “what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms. In this light, a technology that merely classifies and optimizes what already exists can, however unintentionally, become an obstacle to change and growth. For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person’s future is not calculable, but depends on one’s freedom — elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God — and on the relationships cultivated.” (§128)

The phrase that a “person’s future is not calculable” may surprise some readers. But if that assertion seems improbable, it might be evidence that one has already accepted the messaging of the Conditioners, those who impose their will on the many through excess power.

And these Conditioners use technology to enframe society, our imaginations even, so that we can not even understand the possibility of being human apart from technological language. We ask, Did you have a productive weekend? I hope not! I hope it was unproductive and inefficient and thereby deeply human.

As Leo XIV notes, “When [technology] becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency” (§92). But efficiency is not a natural good, although it may serve such goods.

Here is another way to put it. Can AI be intelligent, be conscious like we are? If the answer is yes, then I would suggest that we have transfigured our imagination by being enframed by technological society. Put simply, the fact that AI’s consciousness seems possible already assumes a definition of consciousness that is machine-like.

Hence, it is refreshing to hear Leo XIV say, “It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings” (§99). Why is that?

He explains:

These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.

They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth” (§99).

Obviously, many will disagree with these points. But the fundamental point is: if one thinks AI intelligence is akin to human intelligence, then one works from a different assumption of intelligence than the person who denies this kinship.

One needs to read the document itself to get a feel for the total argument, but my appraisal (for whatever it is worth) is that the encyclical successfully articulates Catholic Social Teaching for the “new thing.”

As a Protestant, I can appreciate the arguments because we (Rome and Protestantism) share a basic agreement on moral theology and thus social teaching.

As a final note, the encyclical refers to Romano Guardini, whose work I have read and written on.

Source: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

Why do Romans and Philemon feel so different? A distinction given by Adolf Deissmann helps make sense of this and sharpens our ability to read the NT well.

Deissmann distinguishes between letters and epistles (public writing). He points out that “A letter is something non-literary, a means of communication between persons who are separated from each other” (Light from the Ancient East, 228). And he distinguishes it from the epistle: “An epistle is an artistic literary form, a species of literature, just like the dialogue, the oration, or the drama” (229).

In fuller form, Deissmann writes:

“The epistle differs from a letter as the dialogue from a conversation, as the historical drama does from history, as the carefully turned funeral oration does from the halting words of consolation spoken by a father to his motherless child — as art differs from nature. The letter is a piece of life, the epistle is a product of literary art” (230).

One can see this distinction fairly easily in the ancient world. Short, personal letters tend to approximate our e-mails today. But there are a literary class of epistles such as those written by Seneca.

Seneca clearly wrote not only to a person but also to an audience of other hearers. This would be a public letter (epistle). While Deissmann was too strict in his distinction between a letter and an epistle, the general idea that some letters were written for the public and some were written to individuals (or groups) is sound.

And this distinction explains why we might read epistles like Romans as a public writing, while a work like Philemon feels more like a personal letter. They are the same form (a letter) but with different expectations for readership. Paul expected the various Roman congregations to read his letter and presumably many more Christians, and so he wrote Romans like a public epistle; by contrast, when he wrote to Philemon about Onesimus, he likely had a personal audience in mind (Philemon and the Colossae circle of Christians).

Both letters, however, are occasional in that they are written for specific occasions. With all that said, there is no reason to believe that Paul or others only expected local Christians to read their occasional letters.

While Paul’s letter to the Colossians was indeed written to a specific church or set of churches, its content (the supremacy of Christ) surely impacts all believers. Paul must have known his letters would be read by many. Even if not, the Spirit intended them to be read by the Church, and so we do so today.

Exegetical implications

There are both exegetical (principles for interpretation) and hermeneutical (what it means today) implications of ancient letter writing for reading the New Testament epistles.

First, authors wrote occasional letters in the New Testament for a reason, due to a specific occasion. Paul wrote Romans to gather support for his Spanish mission (Rom 15:24). In so doing, he lays out his missionary theology that centres on how both Jews and Gentiles are saved by the same Gospel via justification. Discerning this occasion for writing is really the first step in reading an ancient letter well.

Second, by recognizing the occasion, we can discern more closely the author’s intent in writing. In Romans, Paul demonstrates his Gospel to the Romans to ensure that they knew it before he arrived and sought financial support for his Spanish mission.

Third, by discerning the occasion (and so the audience) and then the author’s intent in writing, we can begin the work of uncovering the author’s argument. In Romans, Paul for instance develops an argument that begins with the Gospel as redeeming both Jew and Gentile who together are under sin. He then moves to justification, sanctification, glorification, and more besides these before turning to practical implications of his Gospel (Rom 12–16). The epistle begins and ends with a call to the obedience of faith to the nations (Rom 1:5; 16:26), which is in line with his missionary purpose.

Fourth, we can then discern the principles underlying Paul’s argument in Romans (i.e., his Gospel) such as: all sin, all need to be justified before God, etc. This helps us move from the “then” of the text to the “now” of today. We all stand before God under sin and are in need of justifying work in us. And much more than this.

These four steps show a movement from interpretation to today’s meaning, which shows the beginning stages of what it looks like to preach or teach the ancient text of the Bible to the church today.

When the occasion is harder to discern

It is worth noting that some epistles are much tougher to grasp. Galatians, for example, resists simple interpretation. First, there were two areas called Galatia in ancient Rome. Second, we don’t really know who the opponents were that Paul wrote against and what exactly they taught.

We get general ideas, but we need to be cautious here. The same thing is true, for example, in 1 John. And some letters like 2 John are written so un-specifically that we may well assume they were written as public letters for many Christians.

But lest I leave the point too vague, let me give an example of how I might approach a letter whose background seems difficult to reconstruct—1 John.

To begin with, I’d start with what the letter itself says. Some opponents had apparently challenged John and the church to which he writes. From the letter itself, we can discern these things about these opponents:

• They denied that Jesus was the Christ (1 John 2:22) — specifically denying that the human Jesus really was the Christ/Son (1 John 2:23; 4:15, 2 John 9)

• They denied that Christ had come in the flesh (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7)

• They claimed to be naturally without sin (1 John 1:6–10)

• Their conduct was haughty, loveless, and schismatic, which contradicted the gospel they claimed only they understood, causing others to question if they had the Spirit (1 John 2:26-27)

Now, we know that historically in the second century, a number of groups did deny Christ came in the flesh. They were known as gnostics (not the most useful term today). Perhaps John dealt with some earlier versions of this teaching. Particularly, he may have been writing against those associated with the likes of Cerinthus.

As I wrote elsewhere:

“Early evidence from John’s disciple Polycarp verifies that John himself had a direct conflict with Cerinthus. According to Irenaeus, who was himself Polycarp’s student, John once encountered Cerinthus at a bathhouse in Ephesus:

‘There are also those who heard from him [Polycarp] that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, “Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”’ (Against Heresies 3.3.4)

We can be reasonably confident in this account’s reliability. Irenaeus notes that Polycarp ‘was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna... [and] always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true’ (Against Heresies 3.3.4).”

Actually, Irenaeus points out that John wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus:

“John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men... declaring that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the world, He also bestowed salvation upon the men included in the creation.” (Against Heresies 3.11.1)

And as I noted elsewhere, Irenaeus sums up Cerinthus’s teaching as:

1. The world was not made by the supreme God but by a lesser power

2. Jesus was not born of a virgin but was the natural son of Joseph and Mary

3. Christ descended upon the human Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove

4. Christ departed from Jesus before the crucifixion, leaving the human Jesus to suffer alone

5. Christ could not suffer because he was a spiritual being (impassible)

I explained, “Cerinthus evidently believed that Jesus was human (fleshly and passible) while Christ was spirit (spiritual and impassible).”

Now, if this is the case, it would make sense that John argues the following:

• “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.” (1 John 4:2-3)

• “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:22-23)

• “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7)

Notice the emphasis that Jesus is the Christ, or that Jesus Christ (the single subject) became flesh? That would directly contradict Cerinthus, who argued that Jesus was in the flesh but a second subject, Christ, was spirit.

So here, we might say that we can better understand John, 1 John, and even 2 John, not through background information as such; but rather through foreground information. That is, by listening to those among the original audiences that John wrote to, such as Polycarp.

Were I to summarize my point here: we can’t always reliably understand a text’s historical context from background information; yet even here, foreground information — what the earliest hearers of these letters tell us — can help fill the gap. And alongside both, we still have enough in the letters themselves to get at their meaning.

Further Reading