Anabaptists

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 12, 2015

00:00: Father God, thank you for this day Thank you for this fellowship people that want to come here about you learn about you and learn about other Religious so that we can speak the truth to those people Father use this lesson today to sharpen our minds to Bring bring glory to you and your son.
00:19: I'll listen to you this day.
00:20: Amen.
00:22: Well today we're going to be learning about a group typically referred to as the Anabaptists and Most of you may know this but I'll just for sake of clarification in the lesson the term Ana or you've heard Anabaptist is a means again so the idea of Anabaptist is a person who baptizes as an Adult or as a person who is a person of faith doesn't necessarily have to be an adult the person who's made a proclamation of faith And at the particular time in history when the Anabaptists were beginning to really grow and Become a movement during that time in history if you were a member of civilized society you had been baptized as an infant so It it's not as if they think you have to be baptized several times Sometimes the idea of again baptism or re-baptizer is the idea that they baptized several times That wasn't the idea the idea was everybody had already been baptized once as an infant, but the idea was they were repudiating that baptism and They were saying no baptism is for believers only and as a result Where we would call them on a baptizers or Anabaptists as the as the Reformers did They did not identify themselves that way because they didn't see it as an again baptism They saw it as an only baptism so for them.
01:57: It was it was a singular thing It wasn't that it was they were repeating something as they were doing it at what they believed in according to their conscience once and for all Not that it was something that need be repeated so that needs to kind of be understood from the get-go the term Anabaptist is in fact a pejorative term which was given to them by others.
02:19: It wasn't something that they called themselves And here's sort of the way that I want to do this.
02:27: I'll give you a little bit of history We're going to read through what this the four points here are in our chart book by the way If you got just the one page to to not confuse you the top is a holdover from the Lutheran section So you can just sort of forgive that that that's part of the page that came before The only thing they say about Anabaptists are the points of theology revelation salvation and the church So let's just begin by reading what the book says Regarding the theology of the Anabaptist.
03:00: It says Anabaptists did not stress systematic theological studies rather Doctrine was forged as it applied to life Anabaptists were characterized by missionary zeal Separation of life and an emphasis on Ecclesiology, what is ecclesiology? The study of the church so their focus was not so much on rigorous doctrinal purity But it was on rigorous personal that was the concern and so the the role of the church and being that body which was They're not only to instruct the mind But also to instruct the actions of an individual became very important with the Anabaptists It was something wherein they saw the church very much as a disciplinary body In fact when we look later at their statement of faith, which is there are a few different ones But the the earliest which is the slight time though hard to say without spitting the slight time confession it's only seven points of Statements and and none of it really deals with doctrinal, but it's all practical points of Living out the Christian life.
04:26: Yes, sir.
04:27: What is the timeline for this? Period the Anabaptists the slight time confession was in 1527 So you're looking at? 1517 I'm sorry.
04:39: I'm wow it was Apologize 1527 so I had a confession so that would have been ten years after Martin Luther nailed the Nailed the 95 theses of the Catholic Church of Wittenberg.
04:55: So we're looking at a very quick uprising and the historical foundation of the Anabaptists had its rise in swinglianism You remember we talked about the three major reformers if you have Martin Luther who is the German reformer? Then you have John Calvin who is the Swiss reformer in Geneva? You also have Ural Rick Zwingli.
05:23: He was also a Swiss reformer and Uric Zwingli was much more I hate to say much more radical because I don't even like the term radical it's been applied to the Anabaptists, but Zwingli was certainly more radical than was Calvin in regard to his Positions that he took Zwingli took a position such as on the Lord's table that the Lord's table was a memorial service It was not an actual physical representation of Jesus Christ, we know in the Roman Catholic Church the bread is physically Changing into the body of Christ according to their doctrine The cup is physically changing into the blood of Christ and it becomes a propitiatory sacrifice Which happens again thus thus perpetuating the sacrifice of Christ We know that that's what happens in the Roman Catholic view of what they call the mass or the Eucharist in Lutheranism they had a real presence view and they maintain it to this day In fact, we had a man came here years and years ago.
06:25: Our church used to be somewhat theologically liberal And there was a man here who had come from the Lutheran Church and he joined the church and I remember at one point He was serving communion Because we have communion every Sunday as part of Lord's Day worship and he would go and he would hand the bread He said this is the body of Christ for you And I remember thinking because none of the other guys were doing that.
06:49: None of the others were making such a proclamation Now, of course we hold the bread and say this is my body in the same way that Christ held up bread and said this Is my body but he was being over emphatic And I was always kind of wondering why and then I learned later because of his Lutheran background that is it was it was a Vestige a holdover from the theology out of whence he came So that's just sort of a thought for us is there is Lutheranism which says that the bread and the cup are physically the body and blood of Christ but not Propitiationally, they are not a perpetuatory sacrifice Luther believed in justification by faith alone so we have to understand there is a difference between the sacramental system and Sacerdotal system of Rome and the position of Luther Now moving on we have Calvinism Which we see? spiritual presence Spiritual presence that being that Christ is spiritually present in the bread and in the cup But not physically and then of course the Zwinglian view which is that Christ is at the right hand of the Father and that the bread and the cup are memorials to his work on the cross the completed finished work on the cross and so Zwingli was even Considered too radical for Luther at the Marlboro.
08:12: I always have a hard time saying this Mark Berg colloquy They agreed on 14 of 15 points of doctrine But of one they did not agree and it was the issue of the real presence of Christ in the Lord's table so These Anabaptists grew out of they were the the earliest Anabaptists were students of Zwingli But they didn't think he was going far enough.
08:35: So where Luther thought he was going way too far these guys said you're just not going far enough and so one of the first things that they did was that they decided that the baptism that was being taught in the church was Unbiblical and so they baptized one another the two earliest men, and I can't recall their names at this point I didn't bring them.
08:57: I didn't bring their names with me.
08:58: I'm sorry, but the two earliest men Baptized one another and It was like it was it was a huge thing.
09:06: It was this it was this massive radical thing and that's what they were called they were called the radicals and And so they began to be persecuted for this not only by Rome But they were also persecuted by the reformers.
09:22: They were considered radicals they were considered the far-out ones and it all began with this idea that a believer not an infant should be baptized so That all being said we might say wow they sound like us at least this church believes in believers baptism, so You know that that means well.
09:48: You know we would have been the radicals well Let us not go too far because we can take a step back and be honest with history and say were there things that we? Would have agreed with with the Anabaptists yes, but were there several things that we would say they were wrong about yes, and for someone to say that the Anabaptists of the 15th 16th or the 16th century rather that the Anabaptists of the 16th century are the predecessors or the proto Baptists of today is very historically inaccurate the Anabaptists are not Proto Southern Baptists now why don't I make that an issue well because maybe someday a Southern Baptist will hear me Maybe get corrected because I've heard a lot of guys recently Who are saying that the Anabaptists are the found are the are the are the spiritual ancestors of Southern Baptists not true? Well that's that's anachronistic because they preceded Arminius so to call them Arminian would be somewhat unfair to them theirs Was in their soteriology they would have certainly agreed more with Arminius and in that sense if we're going to paint people with a broad Brush, and I'm not saying we're being ugly by doing that but yes from the position of salvation they believed in the free will of man and thus they would have denied certain aspects of the Fall and the role that Adam plays as the federal head of all of humankind and bringing us down and us being Condemned in Adam and dying and Adam and those things so yes there would be an issue there so all of those things are true But there's more in Anabaptist theology that is an issue, but I brought a note.
11:41: I wanted to read in regard to the Baptist History, and I just would like to read this to you because it's funny this comes from a book the title of the book is The surprising truths behind basic beliefs by John Morial and this guy is not a Guy that you know is perfect in anything that he's writing here, but he does say some things that I think are helpful to us statistically Because he starts out by making us think that the Anabaptists are the ancestors of the Southern Baptists listen to this he says today The largest group that counts the Anabaptists the spiritual ancestors are the Baptist churches Within 40 with 43 million members worldwide and 33 million in the United States.
12:25: They're the largest Protestant group of all Scholars point out however, and this is interesting because he pretty much cuts his nose off to spite his face Scholars point out however that the first Baptist Church sprang from a group splitting from the Church of England around 1606 and that there is little evidence of a strong influence of Anabaptism on them or on today's Baptists in 1624 in fact the five Baptist churches of London issued a condemnation of the Anabaptists So again for somebody to say well the Anabaptists are our spiritual ancestors if we're Baptists.
13:01: It's a little unfair Because if we look at history even the Baptist churches in England condemned the Anabaptists for bad theology So that's just you just got to be fair with history at least be honest Did the Anabaptists have influence? I'm sure at some point the idea of baptism of believers only was influential across the board But certainly there was more influence From reformed theology in the Baptist churches in fact for a long time Baptists and Calvinists were kind of that a Baptist was a Calvinist and that was sort of just the way that people talked in fact I know this from experience because my mother is in the Holiness Church or at least was and I would go as a person who had graduated from a Baptist Church, and I would go to her or Baptist College and I would go to her Churches and I would meet people and and they would identify me as a Baptist or a Calvinist to them It was the same thing and what was the thing that joined the two at least in the eyes of the Pentecostal It was the what I call OSAS once saved always saved That was the view that Connected Calvinism and Baptists and what's interesting is I think this is the this is the lone vestige of many Arminians that are Baptists Because Calvinism does believe in the perseverance of the Saints How many Baptists do you know that believe in once saved always saved most of them right even the most fundamental IFB? Baptists believe in what they would call eternal security or a once saved always saved view Where does that come from well they would argue that it comes from Scripture? But where does one saved always saved eternal security come from? It's a it's out of the view That once God has regenerated the soul that he will cause the person to persevere to the end That's what Calvinism says is that it's not just that a person once he raises his hand signs a card or goes and gets baptized That at that point his ticket is punched and it can never be removed or he's birthed in and can never be unbirthed I've heard that several times too Yeah, yeah, there's therefore now no combination those are in Christ Jesus for whom he foreknew He also predestined to be conforming the image of his son right those that that's where we're getting this it's straight from Scripture, but it also involves the predestinatory work and So what happens with modern Southern Baptists who deny predestination or at least the reform view of predestination? They cut off the very foundation for their reasoning for once they've always saved So anyhow, it's just interesting because the the Anabaptists don't believe this that's the reason why I'm bringing all this up I want to read to you from the Anabaptists Actually an Anabaptist writing.
15:59: I found it online Anabaptist.org if you want to spend some time looking at what they write and kind of surprised me because the the modern Anabaptists are not Baptists the modern Anabaptists are the Mennonites the Amish the Quakers Those are the those are the spiritual ancestors or the spiritual descendants of The Anabaptist movement, so how they got a website, I don't know Y'all can laugh a little and I mean because most of them are you know Wasn't saying and that's another thing we have to understand there is a broad spectrum The Mennonites are are much more likely now to be accepting of more modern technologies and things like that than our say the Amish or the Quakers or those and Again, even in the 16th century There was not a ubiquitous or monolithic position that the Anabaptists held to there was division within them, too There were those who felt like they were spiritual prophets bringing in the Millennial Kingdom and see that's the ones that often look Calvin and Luther And then we're dealing with was the kind of what they would call really radical guys the guys who were kind of prophesying in times view and then you have guys like Michael Sattler who we're gonna watch a video about next week Well, I have a lot of respect for you know where I would have disagreed with them on several things Michael Sattler You know what? He went to the he went to the stake His wife went to the pond He was burned.
17:38: She was drowned within one day of one another for their faith you have a lot of respect for these guys who stood on their principles and You know, do I think that they had some some improper theology? Yes, but I told you over the last few weeks Luther had some improper theology Luther was not perfect in his theology either.
17:57: These are people coming out of a great dark time These are people coming out of a time of great oppression spiritual darkness Yes, there's going to be confusion But man, there's also great bravery and a lot of what they did We can't just we can't just say well just kind of paint with a broad brush and say they were all nuts No, there was there were guys that certainly deserve our respect And our admiration for their willingness to give of themselves Holy and completely to the cause of Christ.
18:32: You know what? It wasn't Michael Sattler You know what it was that really got him condemned That he was not willing to take up arms against the Muslims You know, this is the time when there's battles going on and the church is influencing these battles and he said that he would prefer to take up arms against the church and fight alongside the Muslims because of the the oppression of the church and that's what I mean Think of the church he's talking about.
19:06: He's not talking about The Baptist Church down the street.
19:09: He's talking about the Church of Rome that had become a massive Ungodly Yeah, it had become Antichrist and to him he said I would I'd rather fight with them against you Then join you in fighting with them and that's what ultimately caused him Brought about his demise.
19:29: We'll see that some of the video next week But that's both that's both That's both but let me read this This is the Anabaptist view of faith and works Quote the Bible's position is that mere faith in Christ Sacrifices not enough the Bible teaches clearly that saving faith produces and needs Good works in quote now.
19:55: Let me say this about that statement on its face It could be taken in two ways.
20:02: I Could say that statement Understanding that it is still wholly and completely the work of Christ that justifies me, but that my faith is as James says Going to produce good works and that my faith that doesn't produce good works is only words but not true faith But looking at this in the context of the whole writing.
20:26: I just took one sentence out of a very long Lesson that was taught it's more than that when he says mere faith in Christ sacrifice is not enough that to me Is difficult again understanding all that this gentleman wrote? Um because essentially what they are denying is they're denying the imputed righteousness of Christ Because it is and I don't like the term mere faith.
20:51: I know what was the CSOS mere Christianity Was that I don't like putting the word mere in front of anything that regards my Savior But I understand if I say mere faith, what is it? What is it that we're justified by or justified by the work of? Yes, but we're justified by the work of Christ And how is it that we know by faith alone It is not that my good works.
21:21: Tell me I'm justified my good works do bear witness to my faith But I cannot I cannot take anything to the cross I cannot take anything to the throne of my Savior and say this is the thing by which you should save me That I was a pastor or that I preached at a Bible conference, there's a good conference But I can't go stand in front of the Lord and say here's anything I've done And that's the danger.
21:57: Yeah.
21:57: Yeah, and that's why I say that's what I think this can be taken both ways Looking at the whole lesson though.
22:03: He did seem to be denying Justification by faith alone It was an it was essentially saying that the the position of Luther and Calvin and Zwingli that that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone was is not enough and And that's where I would take issue with this The Sleightheim Confession is Seven statements The Sleightheim Confession seven statements are the first is baptism Which to me is so odd because I'm used to confessions like the Westminster or the 1689 You know confessions that are that are steeped in sound theology.
22:46: Where does baptism show up in the Westminster? Like around 39 In the 30s, right, where is it? Yeah, right around that same, you know baptism not that it is not important But it's not establishing our theology It is established by our theology.
23:05: And so the theology comes first.
23:07: Who is God? What is the scripture? Who is Jesus Christ? What has he done? Who is the Holy Spirit? What has he done? What is the church and how does the church manifest itself in the world? what are these things and then we come to the sacraments or the ordinances that are the work that is done within the church in Being those means of grace, you know what those that's how we see baptism But for the Anabaptists, it was number one and I just find in priority somewhat of a again a theological Misstep there that even though that's the focus We bypass the things that help our baptism and our understanding of baptism be in line We're putting the cart as it were before the horse somebody give me the time I'm always run out of time in this class Is it 10 o'clock? Number two in The Sleightheim Confession is the ban.
24:18: So the first is baptism.
24:19: The second thing is the ban.
24:22: You know what the ban is? Excommunication you've got it up, don't you? Cheater So you have You know, you're reformed.
24:34: Oh, yes, you're technological with Reformation.
24:37: Yeah Yes, I bring my 17 Bible translations in my iPad.
24:41: That's the way to go.
24:42: What translation you use? Well, what do you got? so So we've got we start out with baptism.
24:49: We move straight to excommunication again There's so much emphasis on the on the on the externals and the actions Which is really the heart and soul of the Anabaptist tradition and it continues to today think of what it is What do you think of when you think of the Amish? shining and externals, right Good woodwork and Pharisee is a shoo-fly pie Pie that Amish people make is delicious.
25:29: It's actually made from sugar.
25:30: It's a sugar pie.
25:32: That sounds like my kind of pie Well, what I'm saying is it's externals right Phariseeism legalism you see them how do you identify an Amish person is by their garb Right.
25:44: It's it's it's it's a lot of it is how they how they present themselves their their their Unwillingness to accept certain types of technology, which I've always I've always you know You know, and I know I don't mean to be Coarser and you know ugly or anything, but I do say there are certain things I don't understand and maybe just because I haven't come to an understanding of it yet But somebody somebody say they don't use technology.
26:06: I say no they do They don't use technology after a certain point if you use a wheel using technology if you use a chain Technology any of these things are technology.
26:15: You've just decided that at a certain year everything technological after that was sinful and I have Exactly Who's the arbiter of what is and what ain't you know? How did Google become evil but the cart and the yoke not? Yeah, exactly exactly Exactly you can walk a certain distance on the Sabbath or do this And the thing about electricity is even and this is not all I'm kind of paying with a broad brush here But even with electricity There are some who would allow electricity in the barns, but not in the homes Because their their animals need it But the people can't have it because it would be an unholy thing So there's that So excommunication is number two.
27:12: It's the ban It's the it's the you know, we go from baptism to excommunication to number three, which is breaking of bread.
27:18: So the Lord's table so right away the sacraments and Discipline our primary number four separation from the abomination That's the state That's the state church up until the time of Christendom the the advent of Christ Religion was Sacral and it remains so in most religions until this day Sacral meaning familial or within the community If you're a Jew, why are you a Jew? Because you're born a Jew if you're pagan or whatever.
28:11: Why are you that because you were born that? But Christianity brought something different Christianity brought the idea that a man is not a Christian because he's born Into the family of a Christian he's a Christian because he's born again into the family of God right Sacral religions are necessary for the civil Religion, I'm sorry for the civil authorities and religious authorities to be one in the same Sacral religion is necessary for the civil authorities and the religious authorities to be one of the same Jewish community has Jewish law Muslim community has Muslim law Sharia law Right, you're born into it.
29:03: That's who you are Unless you renounce it you remain it Christianity is not a sacral religion.
29:14: Well, it wasn't Until the Roman Empire Constantine and the bringing in of the idea that a person is born into the Roman Empire as a Christian and his Baptism into the church becomes also a mark of citizenship Did you know that even in America there was a time where your baptismal record could serve as a birth certificate? we have to keep records of baptisms here For that very reason because there is a legal precedent to maintain records of baptisms that's based on the sacral system the idea that the state and the church work together for civil unity You ever heard the term separation of church and state? You know who coined the term separation of church and state? the church I'm sorry.
30:17: I didn't mean to Well, it was in a letter by John Adams.
30:21: I think yeah, that's where the term separation of church and state comes from It's not the Constitution, but it was something that the church wanted Particularly Baptist specifically they did not want a state church.
30:33: They did not want a church that was governed by the state Neither did they want a state that was necessarily governed by the church now They now this is not the same as the separation of God and government There's a difference between the separation of church and state and the separation of God and government We have to understand that there is a that no Church father or believer or whatever has ever said that we should just strip God from the government I mean look at our government buildings and Moses is on top of the was a Supreme Court right holding the Ten Commandments We know this God and government have always been together but the idea that any church whether it be the Presbyterians the Baptists or the Lutherans or anyone would ever have authority over the government or likewise that the government could come in and say everyone has to be a Lutheran We wanted that separated That endorsement Yeah, there wouldn't be no endorsing So that's not necessarily a bad thing that those to be separate and that's what we see in the separation of the abomination The Anabaptists wanted separation from all that because think about why do we call Luther and Calvin? Magisterial reformers You know the term magisterial means right? magistrate of the magistrate Calvin brought reformation to Geneva And it became that city's religion Luther brought Reformation to Germany And now when you're born in Germany even to today, we know a German girl.
32:06: She's born a German Lutheran Yeah, this is part and parcel of that sacral system the reformers Maintained a certain form of sacral religion By not divorcing themselves from the state But by maintaining that relationship with the state and as such and you might say well, that's kind of a bad thing I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing I think you can see value both because I think that the Reformation could have easily had been squashed were it not for men like Luther and Calvin who were willing to be influential in Civic government as well as in ecclesiastical government, so I'm not I'm not damning them so just know that I'm not saying What I'm saying is that the Anabaptists saw that as bad and that was why they they saw this Separation is necessary.
32:53: We cannot have any any state connection Okay Yeah separation from abomination went further than certainly separation of church and state Yeah, well again, it's that whole idea of being separate But who was it was you the one who said last night about being the hole in the ground or something was that you? Something about being we talked about this last night Maybe it was Jeff Ah Something about being hole in the hole and go for Christians or something But the idea that they sort of go into a hole and hide was it you Lee somebody said this Somebody was that I will find the culprit because my brain is But the idea that yes, they they they they they hid they Instead of being and I know we've all heard this to death in the world not of the world, but that's necessary We have to be in the world, you know, first Corinthians tells us Paul tells us He said I'm not telling you not to associate with the sexual moral You have to associate with those people that are lost I'm telling you not to do so with those who will call themselves brothers You can't associate with somebody who called himself a brother who is a rampant sinner because that person is a hypocrite He's dangerous for the church.
34:26: He needs to be excommunicated He doesn't need to be somebody that you spend time with But if you say I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna spend time with sinners You're not gonna spend time with anybody in the world.
34:34: You're not gonna be evangelizing You're not gonna be out in the world reaching people for Christ If you say I'm never going to talk to another sinner, first of all, you never talk to yourself Haha, but it's awesome.
34:43: You never talk to anybody so this idea of Separation that's what the monks did They they found themselves in the you know, they in the monasteries Separated from the world because they wanted that personal holiness, but they weren't being salt and light You're not salt and light when you hide in a hole and you don't was it would hide your Light under under a bush.
35:08: That's what I was that's what I was thinking about Nobody takes this candle and puts it under a bed.
35:13: Yes.
35:14: Yeah, it hides it.
35:15: You don't hide That's it.
35:16: That's what I was.
35:17: I was actually trying to look that up.
35:18: Yeah So we see as Matthew 5 is the reference that you're making So we see that separation as something that are we to be separated from sin? Yes in the sense that we are supposed to seek personal holiness we are supposed to love Christ and hate evil But we cannot hide from the world.
35:42: We have to infiltrate the world We have to we have to go engage the world we have that's what we're talking about street preaching You know what? That is that standing in the midst of sinners and saying come to Jesus Christ for salvation for he alone can save you from your sin That's you know, that's that's that's what we're supposed to be doing so I want to I want to jump back to our The last three are pastors the role of pastors the role of the sword which of course they repudiate there are pacifists Which is a whole other issue we can talk about another time I am NOT a pacifist, but I am a person who does not believe in violence for violence sake And let me just explain what I mean by that.
36:26: I believe violence can have a have a Righteous use And people think violence have the righteous use violence can have a righteous use if it didn't we wouldn't hire police officers Because police officers are not hired to go up and tell somebody.
36:42: Hey, don't do that They use violence when necessary just like military use violence when necessary violence has a can be appropriately used people Don't think people think violence is a bad word Violence is a necessary thing because the only way to stop a violent man Who is willing to hurt another man is to use violence against him in a benevolent way There is malevolent violence and benevolent violence and as a martial arts instructor for 20 years.
37:08: I One of the things I've taught is the difference between malevolent violence and benevolent violence What's the goal of benevolent violence to as least injury as possible to stop the person harming another person? Inflict as least injury as possible to stop a person harming another person or to harm yourself.
37:24: I don't go out Try to hurt somebody But I certainly try to stop them from hurting me or hurting someone else By inflicting as little injury as possible that's I Could go a lot further, but and then the oath what is the oath number seven? That is the idea of giving of oaths swearing of oaths And so we'll we'll jump back to the Anabaptist Sheet that we have Okay, I'm out of time Well listen next week, we're gonna watch a short video on the life of Michael Sattler and his wife and I've already told you how it ends Tragically, but it will help you kind of get a visual of what they were living through in the 16th century I hope this was beneficial for you.
38:13: I was encouraging to you and may God use it to help us to better understand history Yes, sir.
38:19: By the way, it says here Conrad Conrad gribble baptized George Blaurock who in turn baptized the others present So are those the two men you're talking about? Yeah, that's the two guys.
38:31: Okay.
38:31: Yeah I I couldn't come off their names right away.
38:35: So god bless Google.
38:36: It's made Sunday school so much fun All right, let's let's pray father I thank you for the opportunity to be with these people again and to Seek to simply be to them a help and understanding history I pray that your spirit has been at work today Helping us to understand why these things matter why we should understand our history to understand Lord History is to understand how things work and to understand Lord the future for to really be able to See how things are going we can look at how things have been and father I pray for Sonny as he gets ready to take the pulpit this morning I pray that you would give him an extra measure of your spirit lead him by your spirit to Preach the truth in Jesus name.