The Church 2

First Baptist Church Leominster

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And our concern is for what

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God's Word reveals to us regarding ecclesiology, the doctrine of the

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Church of Jesus Christ. This may not be a subject that commands our immediate interest or focused attention, but it is a very important matter, and I really want to underscore that.

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Many of the great problems in Church history can be attributed to an unbiblical conception and practice of ecclesiology.

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And some of you have related to me your past experiences in churches and some of the problems that you've had to encounter.

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And if you assess those rightly, those problems could be traced perhaps to unbiblical conceptions of the

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Church and its polity or government, in other words, ecclesiology. And so, this is very important, it's very practical, and I would venture to say that some of the things that we'll be affirming and asserting that we believe are biblical is not going to be understood or accepted or believed by all of us, but that's okay.

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I pray that you would consider carefully attempting to understand what we're saying, and then in the light of the

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Holy Scriptures determine whether what we're saying is true or not. But I think that we can lay forth a case for all of the assertions we make, and when there is less certainty about matters,

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I try and acknowledge that up front. But these are important matters, and so may the

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Lord give us grace to see the importance and the truth of this subject. It has implications for us.

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We began our study last week distinguishing between the universal Church and the local Church, which is commonly referred to as the invisible and the visible

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Church. The invisible because you can't tell or you can't see new life in somebody except the evidence in the way they live, and the visible

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Church would be the local Church. The universal Church is comprised of all people redeemed through Jesus Christ.

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That itself is not a commonly believed statement.

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The universal Church is not, as many teach, comprised only of those redeemed through Jesus Christ since the day of Pentecost.

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Many people think that's what the universal Church is, all people saved from the day of Pentecost until the second coming of Christ.

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But this is not what the Scriptures teach. Rather, all of the redeemed of all of history, all who have ever had saving faith, all who were redeemed by Jesus Christ are a part of the universal

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Church. It includes all those who were redeemed, including Old Testament believers in addition to all

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New Testament believers. But in addition to the universal Church, the New Testament Scriptures speak of local churches.

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And whereas the universal Church of Jesus Christ encompasses all of the redeemed, the institution of the local

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Church occurred, of course, in the early days of the New Testament era. But it's this subject of the local

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Church that we now direct our study. I want to read

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Acts 2, or a portion of Acts 2, of the Lord giving great increase to the local

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Church at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. And this is from the

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New King James Version of the Bible, Peter's preaching. Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch

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David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

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Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath that he would raise up Christ to sit on his, that is,

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David's throne, he foreseeing this, that is, David foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the

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Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

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Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the

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Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself,

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The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this

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Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles,

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Men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the

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Lord our God will call. With many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying,

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Be saved from this perverse generation. And those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.

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And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers.

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Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.

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Now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as any one had need.

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So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising

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God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

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So we see this great work of God in bringing many people to salvation and causing the local church here in Jerusalem, granted in its infant stages it wasn't fully organized as churches would be later, but it existed.

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There were a hundred and twenty disciples meeting, but now there were about three thousand and one hundred and twenty at the end of the day, a great work of God's grace in bringing salvation to these people.

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And so on the day of Pentecost, Peter declared that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out by the risen and enthroned

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Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit was indwelling them, and they became a transformed people, those who believed the gospel, who had embraced

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Jesus Christ as the crucified risen Son of David, whom God the Father had enthroned in heaven, experienced an infusion of spiritual life and vitality.

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Their hearts were knit together in love, and they formed a bond with one another in a local church in which their common life in Christ was experienced and enjoyed by them.

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And so here we see the Lord's blessing upon the first local church described in the scriptures, the church at Jerusalem.

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Now let's consider this matter of the local church. What does the Bible teach?

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What does the New Testament teach? First let's consider the word, really the Greek word that's translated by the

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English word church in the New Testament. The New Testament, of course, was originally written in Greek.

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And when we consider the Greek word that we translate, and so probably most of us know or understand that the

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Greek word for church is the word ekklesia. The word is a combination of two words.

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You have a preposition joined to the word at the beginning, ek, meaning out of, and it's connected to, not the noun, but rather verb kaleo, an infinitive actually for you grammarians.

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There's always one or two lurking somewhere. It's not a noun, it's an infinitive. To call, which means call, it's a verb, an infinitive, call, a verbal noun.

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The word for church, therefore, denotes an assembly of called out people. In the Greek of the

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New Testament era, the word was commonly used to describe a group of people called to a public meeting.

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And similarly, Christians are ones whom God has called out of the fallen world in order that they would gather together as his people.

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This is what a church is, a called out group of people. Now we use the word church in the

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English language to describe a number of ideas that are not in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. We call this building a church.

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There's no place in the New Testament where a building is referred to as a church. We use the word church to describe a denomination, the

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Methodist church, the Lutheran church. We speak of national churches, the

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American church maybe, the church in China, the African church. This is also an unbiblical usage of the word church.

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We speak of the church as all professing Christians everywhere. I do not believe the

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Bible uses the term in this way either. Only when we use the term to describe either the universal church or a local assembly of disciples of Jesus Christ do we use the word church in the biblical sense.

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This is important. The word ecclesia is a common word.

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It occurs 115 times in the Greek New Testament and actually the only place where it's debated is in the passage we read in Acts 2.

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In Acts 2 .47, the modern critical Greek text says to the church was not original with Luke's original writing.

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The context clearly indicates it's a church even if it may not have been in the original text.

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But if we include that in our number, there's 115 occasions where the Greek word ecclesia is found in the

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New Testament. Three of these 115 refer to citizens in a town meeting and all of these by the way are in Acts 19,

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I believe in Ephesus, where the citizens were called out, an ecclesia, called to a meeting, a city meeting as it were.

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On one occasion, the word is used to describe Israel in the wilderness. The church in the wilderness, as the

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King James says, it's rightly translated as assembly maybe in the New King James or the

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ESV reference to Israel. Israel was called out of Egypt by God in order to be gathered and meet with God in the wilderness consistent with the word ecclesia.

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That leaves 111 occasions and if we consider these, they refer to the

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New Testament church, we can actually identify three categories or three different entities which the word church in 111 uses sets forth.

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You have a local church, frequently set forth. Secondly, you have the local church as an institution.

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In Matthew 18, when the Lord Jesus spoke about difficulties you're having with your brother, tell it to the church, he's talking about a local church as an institution.

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He's not saying go out and announce it to every Christian that you encounter, he's not talking about telling it to the universal church.

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That's not possible. Church as an institution. Or you'll find thirdly, you'll have the universal church referred to by ecclesia and this church is being gathered presently and it won't be gathered fully or completely until the end of the age when

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Christ returns. And actually the universal church is not addressed directly in a lot of places in the

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New Testament. Most of these are in Ephesians, probably Colossians, we dealt with one of them in Hebrews 12 last week.

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Of the 112 or 111 places therefore where ecclesia is used for the word church to describe a gathering of Christian believers, the vast number of these, 92 of these out of 111 clearly refer to a local church or local churches.

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Yes. And so the word ecclesia identifies local churches principally although on occasion it speaks or identifies the universal church as well.

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One said that in its ordinary use in the New Testament the word designates a specific local assembly of Christians organized for the maintenance of the worship, doctrines, ordinances, discipline of the gospel united under special covenant with Christ and one another as the church at Jerusalem, the churches plural of Galatia.

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And the word occurs in this local sense in 92 instances. This is the predominant use.

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The local church is the only ordained institution in the New Testament to carry out the work of Jesus Christ in the world.

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That's not to delegitimize, you know, parachurch organizations and other ministries and missions.

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Those are good. But the local church is what Jesus Christ ordained, created, sustains to carry on his work in the world principally.

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The first century Christians would not have understood our use of the term church when we use it to describe our buildings, our denominations, or our national churches.

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A church that could not gather together would have not been a church in the biblical sense.

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And so we see the Greek word for church, ekklesia, assists us in better understanding the church for it excludes many uses of the word church that we use in our

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English vocabulary today. And so biblically speaking there's no such thing as a denomination that's called a church like the

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Presbyterian Church or the Methodist Church or the Roman Catholic Church or any of them.

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Church of England. The Bible never uses the word church in that way. And by the way, we commonly talk about, you know, the

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Lutheran Church, the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, but no one ever refers to us as churchheads, plural, because we have an understanding of the importance of the local church.

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There's no biblical example of a national church like the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. And there's no use of the word church to describe all

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Christians, say, in a geographic or within a national border such as a church in America or the church in Asia, and yet we all use the word church in this way.

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It's really not biblical to speak of the evangelical church or even say the Church of New England.

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The Bible doesn't use the word church in that way. I'm not saying it's wrong to use these expressions, but if and when we do, we are no longer using the word church as it's used in the

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Bible, and I think it's important that we recognize that. And so I'm not saying that we should stop calling this building a church or stop referring to a denomination as a church, but we should be aware that when we do so, that we're careful not to import biblical ideas of the church to those entities.

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You understand what I'm saying? Because this is where problems result. Many people commonly do, however, and this results,

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I believe, in a depreciation of the nature and importance of the New Testament local church, and it gives undue credibility to institutions that are not churches according to the

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Holy Scriptures. There are a lot of people who have high regard for a church as a denomination or a church within a certain region, and they don't have a high regard for a local church.

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But in the Scriptures, there is no church apart from the local church and apart from the universal church that is comprised not just of Christians living today, but all believers of all of history.

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And so if we're going to use the word church, let's use it biblically, at least keep in our minds what the definition of the church is biblically.

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Here's a couple definitions of a New Testament local church. This would, of course, be our Baptist understanding of what the

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New Testament teaches. A church is a congregation of Christ -baptized disciples acknowledging him as their head, relying on his atoning sacrifice for justification before God, and depending on the

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Holy Spirit for sanctification, united in the belief of the gospel, agreeing to maintain its ordinances and obey its precepts, meeting together for worship, and cooperating for the extension of Christ's kingdom in the world.

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That's a good definition. And by the way, that was put forward by a

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Southern Baptist back in the middle of the 19th century, a guy named Pendleton.

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Here's another good definition, however. A Christian church, according to the point of view traditionally held by Baptists, is a company of regenerate persons, that is, those who are born again, baptized on profession of faith in Christ, united in covenant for worship, instruction, the observance of Christian ordinances, that would be baptism,

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Lord's Supper, and for such service as the gospel requires, recognizing and accepting

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Christ as their supreme Lord and lawgiver, and taking the New Testament as a divinely inspired record, and therefore a trustworthy, authoritative, and all -sufficient rule of faith and practice.

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That's not a denial that the Old Testament doesn't have authority too, but if you want to find direct instruction for local churches, you're going to need to look to the

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New Testament principally. Now let's consider, therefore, in the light of what we said, its implications.

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What about the membership of New Testament local churches? This is a very important question that we must always ask.

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Who may become a member of a local church?

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Depending on how you answer that question is going to have far -reaching implications on church life.

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We read in Acts 2 .41 and also verse 47 that the Lord added to his church.

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Who were the ones that the Lord added to the church? They were ones who believed and obeyed the preaching of Peter when he proclaimed to them the message of Jesus Christ.

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They were added to the church. The Apostle Peter declared to them that though they had rejected and crucified

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Jesus, having refused to submit to him as the promised King of the Jews, God had vindicated his

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Son when he raised him from the dead. God had enthroned his Son in heaven as the promised

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Son of David, who was now ruling over the kingdom of God. That was

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Peter's declaration. Peter's sermon brought a great sense of conviction upon the people who heard him.

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They were convinced that they had committed a great travesty of justice against the Son of God, and so they asked

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Peter what they should do. Peter commanded them, Repent and return from your sin, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are far off as many as the

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Lord our God will call. And so the ones who gladly received his word were baptized.

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It was through their repentance and faith, shown in their obedience, being baptized as they were commanded, that the

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Lord added to the church on this day about 3 ,000 souls. We read that all who believed were together.

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We read that their fellowship with one another continued from that day forward. They were breaking bread from house to house.

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They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, having favor with all the people.

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And so the only ones added to the church were ones who were converted, who gave evidence that they had experienced new life in Jesus Christ.

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They were disciples of Jesus Christ. Our Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 has two statements that describe the members of local churches, and I think these are biblical.

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All persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors averting the foundation.

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In other words, they are not hypocrites or heretics. Their unholiness of conversation, and here conversation isn't speaking about speech but the way one lives, as an old

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English word, are and may be called visible saints, and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted.

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That's a statement that says basically only Christians ought to be members of local churches. Now that is a profound statement, and not everybody believes that, as we're going to show.

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But this is what Baptists believe the New Testament teaches. And we would argue that Acts 2 underscores this.

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Only those that repented and believed the gospel and were baptized, who joined themselves to the disciples of Jesus, they were added to the church.

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They and only they. And then there's a second statement. The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing in their profession and walking, their obedience unto that call of Christ, and do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves to the

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Lord and to one another by the will of God, and profess objection to the ordinances of the gospel.

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Again, Christians only are to be admitted as members of the church. So only born -again

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Christians, we would argue, are to be admitted as members of a New Testament local church. Unless one has become a devout and committed disciple of Jesus Christ, he is not qualified to become a member of a

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New Testament church. Only the one who has repented of sin, purposed to believe and submit to Jesus Christ as Lord, has submitted to believer's baptism as the

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Lord Jesus commanded of all his disciples. Only the one who joined in fellowship with the

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Lord's people, only he is qualified to become a member of a local New Testament church.

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And of course, only those whom the Lord causes to be born -again or regenerated would become transformed by the grace of God and repent and believe the gospel and desire to live for Christ with Christ's people.

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And so the New Testament teaches that local churches should be comprised of a regenerate church membership.

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And I put that in bold and italic because this is what has historically distinguished

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Baptist churches. This is what we understand the New Testament to teach. Only those whom

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God has caused to be born -again by the Holy Spirit are to be admitted to formal church membership.

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We would argue that the relationship between members of a local church make it absolutely necessary that all members experience spiritual life in Jesus Christ.

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In order for true fellowship to be enjoyed, this must be so. We read in Acts 2 .47

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of those members of the church at Jerusalem, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine in fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.

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Fellowship should characterize a local church. And what we're saying is only members that are born -again can experience fellowship.

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This might seem to be rather simple, straightforward, and who would even object to it? We'll show you that many do.

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How could they have fellowship with one another unless they believed the same things, loved the same things, desired the same things?

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They couldn't. Paul wrote to the church of Philippi, speaking of their common life together,

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Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like -minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

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How can that be true in a church unless you have a body of people who are disciples of Christ, born of the

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Holy Spirit? It's not possible. The Word of God teaches us that there is no common ground, there is no basis of fellowship between true

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Christians and those who are not. And so we read of this in 2 Corinthians 6.

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Paul was reasoning with the church at Corinth. It was a messed up church. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

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That's commonly applied to Christian marrying a non -Christian. That certainly would be an application.

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But he's really talking about extending fellowship to people. And he's arguing here, what basis is there of fellowship between a believer and an unbeliever?

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He's arguing there is none. Don't be unequally yoked to them. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?

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What communion has light with darkness? See they can't, there is none. What accordance or accord has

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Christ with Belial, with the devil? For what part has a believer and what agreement has the temple of God has said,

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I will dwell in them, walk among them, I will be their God, they should be my people, and therefore come out from among them.

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He's talking about unregenerate people, unconverted people. And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean,

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I will receive you, I will be a father to you, you should be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

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And so he's telling this church at Corinth that they needed, as far as a local church is concerned, they needed to join with one another who know the

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Lord. And so a local church that is patterned after the churches in the

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New Testament will attempt to admit into its membership only those who give evidence that they've experienced new life in Jesus Christ.

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Only true Christians may experience together the spiritual life that the

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Lord has imparted to them. They have the same love for God and for his Son.

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They have the same desire for the glory of God to be advanced through them. They love righteousness and they desire righteousness to be evident in their own lives.

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They have the same hatred for sin and for injustice. They have the same longing to have others, their family, friends, even strangers experience the same life in Jesus Christ that has been so freely granted to them by their

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God. And again, we would argue that Baptist churches have historically held this understanding of the local church.

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This understanding of those who should be admitted as members of a local church is so clear in the

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New Testament, it's hard, at least for me to understand, how there are those churches that do not believe this doctrine and who refuse or fail to advocate a regenerate church membership.

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And yet there are many churches that do just that. They do not believe the local church as we have described it thus far.

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And so let's consider some churches and denominations that do not adhere to a regenerate church membership.

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And I'm not trying to be offensive here, I'm trying to be clear and distinct.

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We might assume that this teaching of church membership is understood and practiced by all or at least by most churches, but actually this is not the case.

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And here are some examples of those denominations who fail to adhere to this teaching. First, there are those churches that teach, wrongly, of course, we'll show, that people are born again through the rite of baptism.

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The church, when they baptize, that causes people to experience the new birth. They're transformed, they're given new life, they're made a member of the church, they're made a citizen of the kingdom of God by baptism.

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Even baptism administered to babies, and this is commonly referred to as paedo -baptism, paedo being a

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Greek word for infant or child, they baptize babies. These baptized infants then grow up as members of the church and as citizens of the kingdom.

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They're taught that they are Christians, that they are citizens of the kingdom of God because they were baptized as babies.

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But we would argue that baptism of a baby, or baptism of an adult for that matter, does not result in salvation or in a transformed life.

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And yet these churches are filled every Sunday with church attendees who have an outward form of godliness, but who deny the power of the gospel to transform the life of everyone who truly knows the

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Lord. The word of God commands us not to have fellowship with people or churches in the first century all the way through this last 2 ,000 years church age.

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In these last days, perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self -control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

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And he's talking about people in the church here, not just out there in the world.

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Having a form of godliness but denying its power, as Paul described these men to Timothy.

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From such people turn away. Those who present a form of Christianity without any vital transformation of a life, who advocate a form of godliness, a veneer as though they're

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Christian, and yet it's not manifest in their life, Paul tells Timothy, turn away from them.

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Don't run with them. For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women, loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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And so Paul was warning Timothy of conditions throughout this church age. There would be those who claim to be

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Christian, have a form of godliness, and they promise themselves and others that they have salvation.

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But their lives fail to manifest the power of God to enable them to live as true Christians. They go to church.

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They think they're right with God. They would claim to be Christian, but their Christianity is in word only.

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Paul told Timothy to turn away from these people. They do not know the Lord. And again, you know,

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I'm going to be direct here, and I'm supposed to do that. I'm trying to be faithful here, so please don't get offended, but I want to be clear.

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And if you don't agree, that's fine. Prove me wrong from the scriptures or from history.

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Those who teach that people become Christians through the rite of baptism include the Roman Catholic Church, the

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Church of England, 39 articles declares it, the American Episcopalian Church, and even the

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Methodist and Lutheran churches, which is amazing to me because that is so contradictory to their advocacy of justification through faith.

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These churches and denominations teach that babies become born again through baptism, that they become Christians and members of the

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Church. And of course, we would argue that no such power is infused in the rite of baptism.

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We're not saying there are not true Christians in these denominations. We wouldn't say that. But those that are true

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Christians, the teaching to which they've been exposed, anybody thinks that they have salvation because their church baptized them when a baby, you're in trouble.

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If there are true Christians in these denominations, and there are, and some of them, a great many of them, particularly say a

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Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, is very biblical in many respects, and there are Methodist churches that preach the gospel, but they cling to this understanding of infant baptism, which is, in my understanding, in direct conflict with the heart of the gospel.

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But these Christians are only Christians because of the mercy and grace of God revealed to them that their salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone, not through what their church claims to bestow upon them.

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Well, the only way that a church can determine if someone is regenerate or born again is by the evidence shown forth in his life.

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Baptism, in itself, changes no one. Baptism is a public confession of one's faith in the

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Lord Jesus. It's a declaration before others. He's turned from his former way of living without Christ, and he's now committed to live for Jesus Christ among other people who believe and are committed to the same kind of life.

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Babies have no such knowledge, nor are they able to make such a commitment. Only one who believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, who has repented of former sin, and purposes to live for Jesus Christ among the

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Lord's people, only then should the church treat as valid his claim to be a

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Christian. Only this person is to be admitted to church membership. However, there are other churches that teach wrongly, in my opinion, that the children of believing parents are to be baptized because of the virtue of their parents' faith.

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They don't teach that baptism causes the new birth, but rather these children of believing parents are believed to be covenant children, and this is how they are described.

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Even though they understand they were not born again in baptism, nevertheless, because their parents are believers, they are regarded as covenant children.

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We'll get into this in some detail next week, Lord willing. And so they are said to become members of the church through baptism, even while the church knows that some, if not many of these children, are not born again.

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And this is the belief and practice of Presbyterian churches. And some of my closest friends in the ministry are

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Presbyterian. We love the Lord, we are solid in their doctrine, but we differ in our understanding of the church.

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And they would be forthright in telling me they differ with me and I with them if the issue ever comes up.

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But this can be clearly seen in the Westminster Confession of Faith. And the Westminster Confession of Faith is a great confession, one of the best.

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Here is a definition of the membership of a local church. The visible church, which is also

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Catholic, and Catholic is lowercase c, means universal, which is also

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Catholic or universal under the gospel, not confined to one nation as before under the law, consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, amen, we say amen to that, but here it is, and their children.

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In other words, their children who don't profess the true religion. But the visible church is made up of them.

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And then notice, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Children of believing parents are citizens of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, is what they are saying.

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The house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

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And so take note that the visible church, that is the local church, has as its members those who profess faith in Christ, but in addition, their children are also members of the church and are also in the kingdom of God.

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But the Bible does not teach this regarding the membership of local churches.

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And again, some of my dearest friends believe and practice infant baptism in this way.

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They would be the ones who would declare most the error of teaching, saying that baptism brings about the new birth.

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They repudiate that. They argue, of course, that we should baptize infants, believing parents, just as infant boys were circumcised who were children of Abraham, and we'll get into that next week probably in some detail.

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And some of the most tremendous servants of Christ through history have believed this and practiced this, and I listed some here.

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R .C. Sproul, one of my heroes. The late James Montgomery Boyce, who was a wonderful man.

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John Murray. J .I. Packer. And then the who's who of history, John Calvin, George Whitefield, John Owen, Jonathan Edward, Charles Hodge, D.

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Martin Lloyd -Jones. I mean, how could anybody question these folks? But in this matter, we must side with the scriptures, not with a wrong interpretation of the scriptures that these good men embraced.

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And again, we'll say more about this and explain why their understanding is not biblical.

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But thirdly, there are Baptists, and so Baptistic as an adjective,

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Baptistic churches, and there are a lot of Bible churches or independent churches that are Baptistic in their order.

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And they teach that only those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, who have purposed to turn from sin and live for righteousness along with others of like faith, only they are admitted to formal church membership.

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We believe this is what the Bible teaches. And although we acknowledge that children of believing parents have a measure of God's mercy and blessing attending them, they are not to be regarded as members of Christ's church until they show forth saving faith in their own profession and in their own life.

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Now, there's a whole other group that we don't have time to get into here, but aside from these three views as to who should be admitted as members of local churches,

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Reformed Congregational churches, and there are many in New England, there are not too many outside of New England, and there are some in Old England, too.

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D. Martin Lloyd -Jones was Reformed Congregational. Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, I mean, great, great.

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They have a different understanding. I'm reading in their documents that they advocate that only true

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Christians should be members of the church, yet they continue to practice infant baptism, which

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I think is in conflict. That's going to get you into problems, and I don't know if we're going to take some time to go into that, but I've been reading their own documents, the

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Savoy Declaration, which is almost identical to, or much like, our 1689

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Baptist Confession. It was drafted in 1658 in London, and I'm comparing that with another document that was put together in Cambridge, here in Massachusetts, ten years earlier, the

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Cambridge Platform, and I'm reading the language, and they are conflicting with one another about their understanding of the local church.

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Very fascinating. And so I would argue that they're inconsistent, really, among Reformed Congregationalists, and there's some problems there, because I believe that baptism by immersion of a disciple of Jesus Christ is what the

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Lord has placed in the New Testament as a guarantor, not a guarantee, but as a guarantor of regenerate church membership.

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In other words, in the first century, if you stepped forward to be baptized, it was going to cost you something.

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You were repudiating a former way of life, and many times you lost your family, you lost your job, you were kicked out of the synagogue, you forfeited everything.

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And so to step forward and be baptized, that was a profession of faith, and there would be a tendency that only those who have new life in Christ would move forward to do that.

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And so the very act of baptism of disciples by immersion of people who believed and repented assured that most of the time, true

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Christians would join local churches. Today, however, of course, to be baptized doesn't bring about great sacrifice or difficulty, and oftentimes, sadly, even

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Baptist churches will confer baptism on people who give very little evidence that they have new life in Christ.

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And so even many Baptist churches across our land have filled their buildings with nominal

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Christians who are clueless about new life in Christ. And so Baptist churches have their problems, too.

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But what we're arguing, what we're saying is that if we affirm these basic teachings of the

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New Testament church set forth before us, that in order to have true fellowship in a church, we've got to have common life in Christ.

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And if we don't have common life, there is no common ground whatsoever. We don't believe the same things.

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We don't feel the same things. We don't desire the same things. We need to maintain, as God enables us to the best of our ability, according to His grace by His grace, a regenerate church membership.

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May the Lord help us do that. Let's pray. Thank you, our Father, for your word.

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And we understand, Lord, in many ways, your people stumble and fall.

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And churches are defective and deficient in many ways, and that there is really no perfect church.

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But we pray that you would help us to be right in these matters. We pray that you would help confirm and affirm us, our

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God, in our understanding of a local church set forth in the New Testament. For we want to be in a place and a position in which we can receive your greatest blessing, and that we can receive the greatest measure of spiritual protection that you afford your people when they are bound together according to the faith of Jesus Christ, in whose name we do pray, amen.