Episode 56: What is a Reformed Baptist?

Through the Ruled Church podcast.

Christ the King and the Local Church

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

How many days till fall, Eddie?

Man, I don't know. What is today? It's like a month, right?

Yeah, we're recording. We're recording on August 23rd, which means it's one full month until fall officially.

Yeah, by the time this comes out, it should be officially fall. It's gotta be cooler than it is today.

It's gotta be. I've lost some weight, but I'm still just north of 200 pounds, like 210.

Yeah.

And that's not built for this. It's August, Arkansas weather.

Yeah, I weigh about 220, and it's not either.

Hey, but check out what's in my backpack.

I see your Christmas tree. It's beautiful.

Hold on, let me plug in the lights.

You know, I did tell you we sang a Christmas song a couple of weeks ago.

Good for you, bro.

Yeah, yeah, so.

So, welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I'm Allen Nelson, your co-host. Providence Baptist Church, one of the pastors. With me is Eddie Ragsdale, my good friend, partner in the ministry. Brother, say hello.

Hello, everybody.

What It Means to Be Reformed

I have a question for you.

Yes, sir.

What is a Reformed Baptist?

That is a great question. I actually had the opportunity to answer that just yesterday, some people asked. And it's interesting because we actually, I would say that I don't think I qualify as a Reformed Baptist the way that I would define it.

And I think that you do qualify as a Reformed Baptist. Although we don't have that much that's different, but I think the difference would be, I think there are certain things you have to have if you're gonna be Reformed, and then we can talk about Baptists.

So maybe first we have to just define what's it mean to be Reformed? So what would you say it means to be Reformed?

Well, I think that there is a broad category that people use, and then I think there's a more technical definition.

Right.

So a lot of times when people talk about Reformed theology, they're talking about the five points of Calvinism. They just mean if someone is Reformed. In fact, in a very broad sense, you don't even have to check all five petals of the tulip, right?

Or whatever. You could be a four-point Calvinist, whatever, but in this broadest sense, people say I'm Reformed, they mean I ascribe to tulip. And that could, which is, by the way, which we'll just talk about that real quick, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

So you're saying that men are unable, unwilling and unable to come to Christ. They're dead in their trespasses and sin. There's an effectual call that comes from God to the elect through the heralding of the word, that's irresistible grace.

Jesus died not for a amorphous blob. He died not for potential. He died for his people, Ephesians 5. He gave his life up for the church, limited atonement. Oh, I did the I backwards, didn't I? Sorry, I don't know how to spell tulip, Eddie.

It's all right, get them all in there.

Unconditional election before the foundation of the world. God chose a people for himself, passing over others, leaving them in their sins. And then perseverance of the saints, those who become Christian actually endure to the end.

Right, right. So that's a real short summary. But what I'm saying is in its broadest sense, some people mean reformed equals Calvinist soteriology.

But it really means something more than that, right?

That's included in there.

Right, right.

But it's not all.

Right, you really can't be reformed if you don't hold to those five doctrines, whether or not we put them with Calvin's name or not. But there's more to being reformed than that. You hold to a historic reformed confession.

You confess a historic reformed confession. And covenant theology would be necessary basic structures for being truly reformed.

Yeah, I'd say something like five solas, the five points of Calvinism, and then confessional. You know, a historic confession. You like, and I know that some people don't wanna call, our argument today is not about whether Baptists can be reformed or not.

It doesn't really matter.

That label's around. So you can either deny the label exists or you can seek to define it. So reformed is affirming the five solas, affirming the five points of Calvinism, and then affirming a historic, basically 17th century confession of faith like the Westminster or the Savoy Declaration, or I would include in that, obviously, the 1689.

So it affects more, with kind of long way to say it, but it affects more than just your soteriology, but also your ecclesiology is very important. So a lot of people that I know that would affirm to be Calvinist, but it doesn't really affect their ecclesiology.

And for me, it's disappointing, you know?

Yeah, I agree.

But I also wanna say this, because we have a good friend who not long ago, by the time this comes out, I guess it'll be about a month ago, did a episode on why he's not a reformed Baptist. And that's our friend, Harold Smith.

And I talked to him on the phone a little bit, and I think Harold is a wonderful brother, and he's preached in my church, I've preached in his church. We have become good friends over the last almost 10 years, and we remain good friends, but we come up on different sides of the reformed Baptist camp.

But he and I both agree, sometimes some of the most contentious people I come across are the so-called reformed Baptists. Now, I'm in that world. I guess if I was a Presbyterian or something, I would say some in that camp, you know?

But I don't talk to them a whole lot, but I do run in reformed Baptist circles, and so I run into reformed Baptists, and sometimes they can be quite contentious. And so we would encourage our brothers to embrace the label 1689 or reformed Baptist to not be so contentious and not turn others off to the position.

That I hold is biblical and right, but that's where I'm at, reformed Baptist. Five solas, five points of Calvinism, and then I affirm the 1689, which includes covenant theology, meaning that I affirm the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, and that we're saved by the covenant of grace, and the Old Testament saints were saved by the covenant of grace, though I would differ with the Presbyterians.

There's not one administration of the covenant or multiple administrations of the covenant of grace. That's not how it works. Rather, all the covenants in the Old Testament are pointing forward, ultimately, to the covenant of grace.

Anyway, I've talked enough, so

No, well, I would agree with everything you just said. Yeah, I would affirm the way I have used reformed, referring to myself in the past, was, of course, the five doctrines of grace, the five solas, and then

Run through those real quick. We didn't mention. I mean, I know

The Five Solas and Justification by Faith Alone

Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone, Sola Gratia, grace alone, Sola Fide, faith alone, Solus Christus, in Christ alone, and Soli Deo Gloria, to the glory of God alone. So we would hold to those five as necessary foundational doctrines.

Yeah, so we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and through the glory of God alone. We know all this because of the Scripture alone, which remains, above even creeds and confessions, the highest authority, not the only authority, but the highest authority.

Right, and the reason why we even would use the word, why the word reform has anything to do with it is because the material and the formal issues at stake in the Reformation were the Scripture and the teaching of justification by faith alone.

Those are the issues that were the rallying points of the Reformation. And so, because that's the case, that name, reform, has come along with this. And I was just affirming that everything that you said, I would fully agree with.

The reason I said that you would be considered more reformed or reformed than I maybe wouldn't be is really the only difference would be that our church doesn't confess as historic a confession because we confess the abstract principles, not 1689.

Of course, the abstract would be more like a fifth notes version of the 1689.

Yeah.

Something like that.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people dance around these things. Oh, I will mention our friend, Harold Smith, again. I think Harold Smith has done a really good job of laying out, this is what a reformed Baptist is, and this is why I'm not that.

Regulative Principle and Different Church Orders

And a couple of things he mentions are things like the regulative principle. And at its base, and he's right, he and I have talked. At its base, the regulative principle is just saying, we only wanna worship the way the Word of God says.

That's a very, very loose. And now some people, some people take that to mean you can't have offering, you can't read the catechism, or you can't read a catechism or from the during the Lord's day worship or whatever.

I think that's a misunderstanding. I think you can make a case for taking offering. I also think that Sam Waldron does a good job of that. I also think that reading a catechism or confession during a service is just part of teaching.

And that's what we do. But anyway, I'm just saying there are some hyper regulative principle guys out there that I would not agree with. But at its base, what a reformed Baptist wants to do is worship God the way that God has said, this is how I wanna be worshiped.

Well, and on that point about the regulative principle, different Christians could be holding to the regulative principle, but their perception of what that means the church service would look like could look a lot different.

So for example, I recently watched a video, there's a Presbyterian pastor in Pennsylvania named Matthew Everhard, a lot of good content, but he put up a video comparing their church's service to Jeffrey Rice's service.

And that's a reformed Baptist church in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And he was just comparing basically their order of service, their liturgy, and how similar it was between this Presbyterian church and this reformed Baptist church.

But if you compared their service to our service, well, there was quite a bit of difference between the way both of them did things and the way we do it here at Marshall. And then you and I both, we have some brothers in the Lord who their churches meet in home congregations on the Lord's day in Kansas City.

And so they would also say that they only wanna worship the Lord the way that he has instructed, but their service would look a lot different. So they wouldn't be anti-regulative principle because they would be saying, we just wanna do what the Bible says, but they would be interpreting it differently.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, and I think there's, and one thing, this is not to be a reformed Baptist, dispensational Baptist, Armenian Baptist, free will Baptist. This is, if you're gonna be a Baptist, then this is a necessary component.

You have to like to fight. So Baptists historically like to fight and we like to fight whether you're reformed, not reformed. We like to argue and we like to push each other. And you know what? On one hand, I kind of bemoan that and it's sad and frustrating.

On one hand, I don't mind it so much because at least when you run into a Baptist, they're pulling out their Bible and they're ready to go spar with you. Again, I'm not condoning a divisive or mean spirit or a fighting or contentious spirit, but it is something true.

And so it seems to me that when you get into some of these finer aspects of reformed Baptist theology, that there is a spectrum and there is some maybe volatile opinions.

Baptist History, Cooperation, and Confessional Flexibility

Yeah, yeah.

But a couple of things I wanna say. One, I wanna say that being a reformed Baptist is very historical. That is, you really can't, no matter where your Baptist church is, it'd be really hard to trace it back through the beginning of the United States and not cross paths with reformed Baptist somewhere.

The reformed Baptist were a predominant influence in the United States, in the colonial days, the pre-revolution days, a predominant influence.

Yeah, I think there's some misunderstanding sometimes when it comes to Baptist history and I'm no Baptist history scholar, but I think that there's some misunderstanding sometimes amongst many Baptists about Baptist history because they just assume that, well, my ancestors must be the Anabaptists, which is not necessarily true.

It's actually most of the time not true, at least in the sense that most Baptists, especially in America where we're at, are probably receiving at least as much heritage from the 17th century reformed Baptists as they are the Anabaptists.

Yeah, well, I think that, so history's important. Reformed Baptist didn't just crop up in 2023. I also wanna say that it's important to work together. I'll give you an example. John MacArthur is not a reformed Baptist.

Grace Community Church is not a reformed Baptist church. Nevertheless, I love John MacArthur. I've been to their church. I've been to ShepCon a couple of different times. I'm grateful for the influence and the teaching and all those things.

Obviously, there are some things that I'm gonna say, look, that's not right. I don't think that's right. I don't agree with that. But I think we do need to have a spirit of friendliness or you're gonna isolate yourself into, when they throw us in the gulags, they're not gonna say, which brand of Baptist are you really?

Well, and it's not even that big of a distinction because you mentioned Harold. So Harold's not the pastor there anymore, but you and I have both been greatly blessed by the brothers and sisters of Lee Creek Baptist Church and Brother Joseph Allen that's pastoring there now and thankful for his ministry in that church.

If somebody from my church moved to Van Buren, Arkansas, and they're like, Brother Eddie, you know where we should go to church? I'd say the very first church you should go visit is Lee Creek Baptist Church.

I wouldn't be saying, no, we gotta find a church that is reformed Baptist. I would say, go to Lee Creek Baptist Church because people are gonna love you. And then if for some reason they ended up at another church, well, that's between them and the Lord, but I would tell them to go there.

I wouldn't be saying, we gotta find a church that uses the 1689, which Lee Creek uses Philadelphia Confession, but still my point would be, go there. That's a godly church, they love you.

And that's something else too. Let me address that because there's a lot of churches out there that subscribe to a confession of faith, but not really. You know what I mean? It's like, and I think it would probably be better to not hold to say the 1689 and just hold to an abstract.

Does that make sense? Like when we say abstract, we mean a summation. So like the 1689, I would argue is a summation of the teaching of the scripture, but you could hold to an abstract, which is a summation of the 1689 and just leave out the things that you don't agree with.

You know, if you don't agree with chapter 22 on religious worship in the Sabbath day, then leave that out. And, you know, I mean, I'm not saying at all, I'm not at all implying that churches are being dishonest, but there is this weird kind of popular thing today like we're 1689.

Well, yeah, but not really, you know? And so I think it's just, I think that if we're gonna have a confessional standard or a statement of faith, that that confessional standard, whereas the Philadelphia, the New Hampshire, the 1689, like it should actually articulate what we believe.

Right.

You know?

And so anyway, I think that, I definitely think that churches should work together. Oh, another thing I was gonna mention, Eddie, is eschatology. Being a Reformed Baptist removes you from being, you know, dispensational pre-mill.

Eschatology and the Two Kingdoms

Right.

You can be a Reformed Baptist and be historic pre-mill, all-mill, or inconsistently post-mill, but

You're gonna have to tell me what's the inconsistency with being a 1689 post-mill.

I just think that, I just think the understanding of the two kingdoms produces in us an eschatology that is not, I'm trying to think my words here on the fly, an eschatology that understands the state of the world today and the continual coexisting of the two kingdoms until Christ returns.

Right, and the best, and the reason I say that for our audience is the vast majority of post-mill people would deny two kingdoms, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, they would be very anti. As a matter of fact, many of them will, they will label anybody that holds to two kingdoms as radical two kingdom.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so.

Yeah, I just think, I'm not, this episode

We're kind of all over the board with this episode.

Yeah, this episode is not about bashing anyone. I'm just saying, I'm just calling it like I see it.

No, that's right. That's good, yeah.

So, and I'm happy, and I have, to my knowledge, I have interacted and befriended and probably preached or had someone preach of all these various positions.

Yeah.

Yeah, and even to be a member of our church, so we're a confessional church, but to be a member of our church, you have to have a general agreement with the 1689, which basically every Christian, basically, should be able to say, well, I have a general agreement.

Right.

But

Because the gospel's present.

That's right.

In 1689.

You know, and affirmation of the scriptures is the word of God and all those things. But if you hold a different position and say, well, I don't know if I agree with chapter three on God's decree and election and all those, I'm not sure where I'm at on that, you can still be a member of our church.

You just can't be divisive.

Right.

Right?

Right.

So that's the thing, too. Like our church holds this position. Her pastors are gonna teach based on these positions. If you hold contrary positions or you're just not sure, that's fine. Like it's not trying to beat each other up, but we're just not gonna be divisive about it.

And by the way, that doesn't mean that we can't talk about it or ask questions. Absolutely we can. We're transparent. But there's a difference between talking about issues and being divisive over the issues.

And I think it's important that we recognize we are all, and I don't wanna use the kind of squishy modern day language, we're all on a journey. But we are all progressively growing in our faith and in our understanding of truth.

And we can't have such a rigid definition of what everybody has to believe that you couldn't have any baby Christians in your church.

Yeah.

Because if our churches are proclaiming the gospel, they ought to have some baby Christians. We ought to have Christians of all different maturity levels.

Yeah, if you hold a strict confessionalism, meaning they've got to check off every box to be a part of your church, what are you gonna do with the

Then you need another church down the road that's raising up godly Christians that can then come be members of your church.

It doesn't even make sense. Like how is a 13 year old that's genuinely converted, like how are they gonna join your church? They can't.

Right, right.

They're not, you know, so I think it's inconsistent with our own, like I think it's inconsistent with the 1689 to be a strict confessionalist.

Right.

Well, I'm preaching right now through Philippians chapter three. And, you know, Paul there is talking about maturity and the point that he's making in verses like 12 through 16, he's making the point that one, and he's saying this about himself.

He says, I have not arrived yet. I have not obtained this. I'm not there yet. And every Christian needs to realize no matter how advanced they think they are theologically or in their studies, none of us are there yet.

We all also need to realize we have a long way to go because Paul goes on to say, but I press on to make it my own. I'm wanting to lay hold of Christ and I'm just pressing in to know the Lord more. And whether I've been a Christian for three months or for 30 years, I still need to grow in the Lord.

And then Paul urges those Christians that because Christ has laid hold of them, he urges them on to maturity. And he says, let those of us who are mature think this way. And so all we're doing, I would say with the confession is we're saying that if we're not understanding something, well, we just wanna go back to the scriptures because all of us wanna grow up into maturity in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. And I think if you don't like the way another church is doing things, then a simple answer, don't go.

Right.

Right.

Like obviously there are things that I think we should call out. Prominent churches doing foolish things. It's like, look, we shouldn't do that. But if your Baptist brother and friend down the road has special music on Sunday, and you're like, I don't know if I agree with that.

Okay, don't go to their church.

Right.

Stay at your church. But if you have an opportunity, yeah, discuss these things. Talk about these things. Talk about the Sabbath day. Talk about the Lord's day. Talk about the regular principle of worship.

Have these discussions. They're important. By the way, I'm not minimizing. I am, I do embrace that label. I am a reformed Baptist. And I'm happy with that label. I'm happy to be in that camp. I think these issues are really important.

Yeah.

And I think that the motivation is the glory and honor of Christ. What we say here is Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And so that's what we're striving after. I think these things are important, but I don't think that they ought to be used.

They ought to be weaponized as clubs to beat one another over the head with. And even people coming into the church, we ought to be patient, loving, teaching. And no reformed Baptist I know was converted.

And like you said earlier, basically arrived, it's like they converted and they arrived at all the convictions they have now at the moment of their conversion.

Right, right.

We've got to grow. We've got to learn these things. And these things are important, but it's why we aspire to have a healthy church. In fact, and I would encourage, I would encourage my Baptist friends to read the 1689, to study, to see the things that you disagree with, study the scriptures and see why I do think, all, not just Baptist, I think all Christians should subscribe to the 1689.

But of course I understand that's, we live in a fallen world and we're gonna have these disagreements, I get it. And we need to be able to have them charitably. So I'm a reformed Baptist. I think everyone should be a reformed Baptist, but I'm happy to cooperate and work with and befriend and labor and partner with those who are not.

Right.

And here's something else we can point out. And I appreciate what you were saying, because, and I may even take it just a step further. We can be thankful for what God is doing in churches, even where we have significant disagreements, if they're truly Christians preaching the gospel.

Amen.

So for example, just this past week, actually last Wednesday, right after we got off the podcast recording, I attended a funeral of a young woman from my community where I grew up. And she had been converted actually just in the last several years and was walking with the Lord and was attending an affinity-based church.

And you and I have both in the past made our views of affinity-based churches known that we don't think that's a good practice for a church to build its identity around a shared affinity for bikers or cowboys or whatever.

And yet I'm thankful that she was genuinely walking with the Lord. I'm thankful that it was a good service. It was acknowledging Christ. The gospel was preached. Praise the Lord. You know, I'm not gonna, oh, that's affinity-based church.

No, no, the gospel's being preached. And I don't think it's best. I don't think, I clearly don't believe that's a good model. But at the same time, I don't have to assume that God can't be doing any good thing when the gospel's being proclaimed.

You know, I think that it's okay to say, you know what, Lord, they're your servants. You can do what you wanna do. I just, I'm gonna work here in my church. I wanna see my church be as healthy as possible.

I don't wanna lie about the fact that I think there are problems with affinity-based churches or whatever. But at the same time, I don't have to constantly have my stomach in a knot about what's happening in every other church because we don't have time for that.

Yeah, I think that, I'm in agreement with what you're saying. I think that we have to, you know, bad ecclesiology is not okay, and we're not condoning that.

Right, that's what I'm saying.

The Lord has been so merciful with us and patient with us. When our ecclesiology was lacking. And so what is a Reformed Baptist? A Reformed Baptist affirms the five solas. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

And scripture is our highest authority. They affirm the five points of Calvinism, tulip, if you will. And they affirm covenant theology and a historical confession of faith, which typically includes, you know, the regulative principle.

And we could do a whole episode on the Sabbath day or Lord's day, but all of this is included. So that is what we mean by Reformed Baptist. I want to close by just exhorting anyone listening, our brothers and sisters listening to this, like let your, our theology, like we can't just move from a high doctrine of God in soteriology, like we can't have that and not let that flow over into our ecclesiology.

If God is sovereign over soteriology, he's also sovereign over ecclesiology. He's also sovereign over worship. If this is how salvation works, and we affirm that with God, then we also have to affirm that with ecclesiology and the church and membership and worship.

So I would just encourage some of my brothers and sisters out there listening who may be inconsistent on these things to let it all bleed together and affirm God's sovereignty in each of these areas and see how soteriology bleeds over into ecclesiology.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts. And I know we've kind of drug this on a bit. What else would you want to close with?

Maturity, Charity, and Cooperative Ministry

Yeah, I would just close with the very admonition that Paul gives here in Philippians 3. He says, this is verses 15 and 16. Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained. So wherever you're at, just don't go backwards. Go to the word of God where he has revealed the truth so that you can grow in maturity and let all of us who are mature think this way.

Amen.

Sounds like it's time for you to sign us off.

We'll see you guys next week.

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?