Faith for Faith

Upon the post on Why I am a Reformed Baptist and not a Presbyterian, the question was raised, viz. “If we as Reformed Baptists, because of our understanding of the covenants and Covenant Theology, do not baptize infants, when then is the covenant sign of baptism rightly administered?” An excellent question, I might add, and I promise you that if you were to gather together a group of Baptists and ask them that same question, the result could be likened to that of UFC fight. Believe me, I have seen it before.

To appreciate the differences of opinion within Baptist circles on the proper time to administer the sign of baptism, you would have to understand the diversity within those who are labeled Baptists. To put it succinctly, imagine it this way: If you were to throw all of the Methodist denominations and all of the Presbyterian denominations into a single denomination and labeled it Paedobaptists and were to force them to work together and to throw money into a single pot, you would begin to see a bit of the diversity that exists among those who call themselves Baptists. Anyone who believes in believer’s baptism is a Baptist, be he a Calvinist or an Arminian, Reformed or Dispensational, an advocate of an elder-ruled church government or of congregation-ruled, alcohol connoisseur or teetotaler, etc., and it is for this reason that nobody cares to go to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention unless it is known beforehand that something like Calvinism or alcohol is going to be discussed, and then members flock to it by the droves. It is sort of like looking at a wreck; you know that you shouldn’t, but you just can’t help yourself.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 4 Comments »

After it was dark one evening, a Pharisee named Nicodemus came to Jesus. He was a ruler and a teacher of the Jews, and his coming by night to speak to Jesus reveals a bit of the sincerity of his heart behind his coming. For while the rest of the Pharisees were notorious for conspiring together and then questioning Jesus during the day so as to attempt to trap him in blasphemy, Nicodemus came at night to Christ so that he would not to be seen by the other Pharisees and associated with their trickery.

Upon coming to Jesus, Nicodemus said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (Jn. 3:2). Nicodemus’s confession to Christ is an astounding one, and it places him in direct opposition to his Pharisee brothers. Yet, despite the greatness of Nicodemus’s confession, Christ does not respond to his confession with a “Thank you,” or a “You are right,” or even the response he gave to Peter upon his confession, “Blessed are you!” Christ does none of these things but seems to ignore the Nicodemus’s statement altogether.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 3 Comments »

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2Cor 3.18).

Listening to a rather enlightening sermon this weekend, I came to the realization that in my personal warring against the deeds of my flesh by the Spirit (cf. Rm. 8:17), I have been praying for the wrong things and searching for the wrong remedies. And though it is indeed comforting that in spite of my ignorance of how I ought to pray that the Spirit of God intercedes for me with groanings that accord with the will of God (cf. Rm. 8:26, 27), it is nevertheless wonderful and helpful when the Spirit shares his groanings with me either through his Word or through expositors of it.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 4 Comments »

I had a great conversation the other day with one my wonderful brothers in Christ concerning our failings as believers and how we are to respond to those failings. And though such failings among God’s people are inevitable because of the nature of our present state in this age, we oftentimes do not know how to respond rightly to those failings. And it is not a simple issue. For when we fall into sin and temptation as children of God, our whole soul is cast into upheaval. For our mind understands our fall and logically seeks to rectify it, our heart feels it and is torn by it, our will comprehends it and strives against it, and our spirit is broken by it and feels as though it is severed from the very Spirit of God.

And because of this turmoil that captivates our souls when we fall into sin and by it turn from our God, we long to jump up quickly and turn back onto the path of obedience. However, despite our desire, the path back to obedience is not always as quick and easy as we would like it to be. And I have found this to be the case in my life, where I have walked the path of obedience and then, seemingly out of nowhere, fell into temptation and then found that the obedience that I desired to have was even more difficult than it was prior to my fall.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 5 Comments »

What is baptism? Having grown up a Baptist, I have been taught and have held the typical Baptist view that baptism is merely a symbol and an ordinance, administered rightly by immersion and done as an “outward expression of an inward reality.” And in my many years as a Baptist, I have heard countless preachers and seminary professors give a thousand explanations and arguments concerning the mode of the “outward expression” of baptism from Scripture and from Church history, but I have yet to hear one sermon or lecture on the inward reality that the outward expression represents. For this reason, I am convinced that we who call ourselves Baptists have focused so much on the proper mode and administration of baptism that we have lost what baptism truly is. In this way we are much like the Jews of old who properly administered circumcision on the eighth day of a child’s life (even if that eighth day fell on the Sabbath), who yet forgot and neglected the reality that that practice represented, namely the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit of God to love God and to obey his law (cf. Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Ezek. 44:7; Acts 7:51; Rm. 2:29).

And because of our focus on the physical ordinance of baptism and our neglect of the reality of baptism, we as Baptists are terribly confused by such declarations as that of the apostle Peter, who wrote, “Baptism now saves you” (1Pet. 3:21). For we have so ritualized and despiritualized the practice of baptism that we have become unbiblical in our understanding of it despite our denomination’s title. And instead of doing as we ought and running to the Scriptures to discover what true baptism is, we do as many have done with other doctrines by forming our doctrines and then explaining away passages that do not fit our doctrinal understanding rather than explaining them.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 2 Comments »

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness (Rm. 12:4-8).

The language that is used to describe the elect of God is that of single person, viz. a bride, though, by his grace, the elect of God are far more in number than one, single person. The purpose is multi-faceted. One facet is the picture of God’s love for his elect, demonstrated most clearly in shadow of healthy human marriage where one man and one woman are joined in a life-long intimacy that transcends any other relationship in human experience. Another facet, which is the that of the apostle presently, is the creation of the image of the Church as one body, who though comprised of many members are one single body performing distinct and vital functions. Each one in the Body might, pictorially, fulfill the function of a heart, another a hand, and another a foot, but each member is dependent upon the whole of the others to function properly.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Fridy Night Bible Study | No Comments »

It has been almost a year since I began writing Free Indeed, and since that I time, though I have yet to write or to edit this treatise on the man in Romans 7:7-25 any further, I have since continued to meditate upon this passage in light of my continued studies of the book of Romans. I also during that time have entertained other opinions on the matter and have considered the validity of my case in light of those opinions as well as in light of my further study of the apostle’s epistle. And since those further meditations, I have yet remained unmoved in my interpretation and indeed have seen it validated by my further studies.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Free Indeed & Theology | No Comments »

Most of us have experienced it: the enthusiastic preacher, the classic phrase “If you were to die tonight…,” the bowing of heads and raising of hands, the pronouncements of spiritual birthdays, and a preacher writing in his Bible the name of yet another soul who he had saved after another successful altar call.

If you have not experienced these things, you are among the fortunate, and, hopefully, more doctrinally sound.

For these things are indicative of the doctrinal fallacy that has slowly crept into the post-Reformation church, namely the doctrine of justification by acceptance. This doctrine says simply that one is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and asking him to come into his heart. This doctrine stands opposed to the doctrine of justification by faith, for it warps the nature of faith from that which not meritorious to that which is meritorious. In other words, it takes faith and shifts its weight. Instead of faith being mere belief in the God who has revealed himself to his people through the Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel, faith, in this “justification by acceptance” doctrine, is fully an act of human reason and free will whereby one evaluates the case of Christ and chooses to accept him by asking Christ into his heart or to reject him by doing nothing.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 7 Comments »

I believe that the “whosoever believes” of John 3:16 means that everyone has an equal opportunity to believe the Gospel. According to you, this is not true. Why?

Not that I find joy in flogging an ex-horse, but I must reiterate that we must understand the difference between what a text says and what we interpret a text to mean. In the text of John 3:16, the phrase “whosoever believes” is a modifier that places limitations on the phrase, “will not perish.” Therefore, those who believe in Jesus Christ will not perish, and conversely, those who do not believe in him will perish. However, this phrase says nothing of one’s ability to believe. This verse simply states what is said elsewhere, namely that is through faith that one is justified. Where this faith comes from, to whom it is to be credited, or the universal ability or opportunity for all men to believe is not addressed in this verse at all. Actually, if we study this text in its context, i.e. John 3:1-8, we would likely come to much different conclusion about the interpretation of this text than we typically do.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

If you would take the time to listen to non-charismatic evangelicals on the matter of the Holy Spirit, you would likely find both a willful ignorance of the present mission of the Holy Spirit portrayed in the Bible and a tendency to avoid discussion about him and his work altogether. For many who have stood against the doctrines of charismatics, the Holy Spirit is a subject to be avoided and even one, to some, to be loathed. Therefore, to these, the Holy Spirit is nothing more to the Christian than a glorified conscience that “dwells in” a person (whatever that means) whenever he accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. He aids the Christian in choosing between right and wrong, and he helps the Christian understand the Scriptures.

However, this present view of the Holy Spirit stands in opposition to the teachings of Scripture on him and his works, and they rob him of his glory that is rightly due him.

Who is the Holy Spirit? Simply, he is the third person of the Triune God–the one who proceeds from the Father and the Son to testify about the work of the Son. He is to the elect the one by whom the work of Christ is applied to them. This application by the Holy Spirit is called “regeneration”–the bringing to life that which was dead. Figuratively, this work is called causing one to be born again (cf. Jn. 3:1-8; 1Pet. 1:3), the circumcision of the heart (cf. Rm. 2:29), the removal of a heart of stone and the giving of a heart of flesh (Ez. 11:19), and the writing of the law upon one’s heart (cf. Jer. 31:33). All these things the Spirit does from salvation’s beginning, and the Spirit continues to work in the saved soul till the end, for as the apostle testifies, “[The Spirit] who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 5 Comments »