Baptist theology compared with Roman Catholic theology

The number of Christian denominations is growing as a consequence of the evolution of the various branches of theology. Many of the core doctrines found in most Baptists church came into being either during the Reformation or subsequent to it and have evolved considerably since then. That this is an incontrovertible fact can be found by reading commentaries on the Bible written at various periods of time beginning with the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers. Since the Roman Catholic Church has largely continued to teach New Testament doctrines in the same way that they were taught during the first three centuries by the Church Fathers (that God, by His sovereign design, chose to use to formalize the doctrine of the Trinity and to establish the New Testament Canon), these doctrines no longer seem to those outside of the Catholic Church to line up with the Scriptures. The Scriptures, however, have not changed, and the correct interpretation of them has not changed, but the interpretation of the Scriptures has radically changed as New Testament theology has evolved. In another 2000 years what Baptists now believe to be the correct interpretation of the Scriptures will be seen to be so heretical that the Baptists of that future will wonder with amazement how their forefathers could have been so deceived by the enemy.

Yes, the Roman Catholic Church has, over the years, added miscellaneous doctrines of questionable merit, but they continue to teach the fundamental doctrines of the Ante-Nicene Church. Most Baptists, however, have abandoned some of the core fundamental doctrines of the Ante-Nicene Church and have taken upon themselves doctrines that were unheard of before 1500. Here is a partial list of those doctrines:

• Eternal security in all of its various forms, including the perseverance of the saints and the preservation of the saints
• All men are born into this world in a totally depraved state
• Unconditional election of the saints
• Limited atonement
• Irresistible grace
• Salvation by grace alone through faith alone
• Lumping together as one “works of the Law” and “good works”
• Repentance is not necessary for salvation
• Water baptism is a work rather than a sacrament
• Water baptism has no sacramental value but is only symbolical
• The age of accountability
• The gift of tongues and other sign gifts are no longer in operation in the church
• The Second Coming of Christ before the Great Tribulation
• The Second Coming of Christ in the middle of the Great Tribulation
• The Second Coming of Christ following of the Great Tribulation
• Sola Scriptura

In the last two hundred years, various Baptist groups have taken upon themselves additional new doctrines. Here is a partial list of those doctrines:

• God’s grace is no more than God’ unmerited favor
• The “perfect thing” in 1 Cor. 13:10 is the Holy Bible
• The KJV is, in and of itself, the promised, perfectly preserved word of God and all other translations are works of men or the devil
• The application to the church today of New Testament standards of conduct is “legalism”
• Christians who have sin in their life when they die will be punished for 1,000 years in a part of heaven where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth"
• Christians who have sin in their life when they die will be punished for 1,000 years in hell

 

The exception clause in Matthew 19:9 is NOT Scripture unless it is genuine. We have four accounts in the New Testament of what Jesus taught on divorce, and all four accounts agree with the single exception of the exception clause in Matthew 19:9 which appears to have been unknown to the early church. The logical conclusion is that it was a later addition to the text taken from Matthew 5:32.

Matt. 5:32. but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

But of course in this verse, the reason for the exception clause is that if one divorces his wife for the reason of unchastity he is not causing her to commit unchastity because she has already done so. And in the last half of the verse we read, “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

In Mark 10:11 Jesus taught, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her;
12. and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”

The language in Luke 16:18 is even stronger, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”

As I have already pointed out, on Biblical grounds alone, the exception clause in Matthew 19:9 appears to be spurious. If it is indeed spurious, we would expect it to be unknown to the early Church Fathers and that is what we find. The Bible is, of course, the final authority, but the correct interpretation of the Scriptures is no secret and has been known by at least some Christians throughout the history of the Church. Interpretations of the Scriptures that are not found in any writings for the first 1500 years of the Church cannot reasonable said to be correct, and any interpretations that are totally in conflict with the unanimous view of the Church for 1500 years most certainly cannot reasonable said to be correct. And, of course, interpretations of the Scriptures that are dependent upon modern theology that was unknown until recent times cannot reasonable said to be correct.

There are literally thousands of scribal glosses that do not appear in the text of any English translation of the New Testament today. Many of these scribal glosses were identified by comparing the writings of the church fathers with ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.

I was educated as a scientist, but when I was called by God into the pastoral ministry, I had to go back to school and get a new education. This new education, however, did not cause me to add any new doctrines or drop any doctrines that I had already believed in from the Scriptures alone, but this new education did very much reinforce my belief in the doctrines that I had learned exclusively from very carefully and very prayerfully reading the Bible.

 

This is absolute nonsense. God is NOT a semi-illiterate high school dropout with such poor writing skills that it took 1800 years to figure out what God intended to say. And most certainly the doctrine of salvation was so very clearly presented in the New Testament that any reader who honestly wanted to understand it could understand it. For 1500 years there is no evidence that anyone understood it in the manner that it is taught in most Baptist churches today. And today, the salvation passages in the New Testament appear to most Baptists to be very clear and easy to understand, and this proves that they have something apart from the Scriptures that no one had for 1500 years to help them understand those same passages. So what is it that Baptists have today that no one had for 1500 years? They have a theology of men that evolved over a period of 1500 years that distorts the clear and obvious meaning of Scripture that was seen and written about throughout the history of the Church down to the present day.

 

The value of the Church Fathers and Christian scholars throughout the history of the Church is that we have a standard against which we can compare the interpretations of Scripture being preached and taught today. True, we find a whole lot of trash tossed in by very many fools and heretics, but throughout the history of the Church we also find the truth.

And of course the early church fathers are an invaluable aid in establishing the Greek text of the New Testament. We have over 5,000 ancient manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament, and no two of them are in total agreement with each other. Manuscripts that include readings of the text that are unknown to the early Church Fathers are much less likely to be genuine than the readings of the text that were widely known to the early church fathers.

The bottom line here is that all Baptist who have studied the history of the interpretation of the New Testament know full well that most Baptists interpret a large number of verses in the New Testament in ways that are not only new, but that are very much at variance with the early historical interpretations of the Scriptures and the large majority of Bible scholars throughout the history of the church down to the present day. If the interpretation of these Scriptures taught by the large majority of Baptists is correct, that necessarily means that these Baptists somehow or another managed to understand scriptures that were so poorly worded as to make them unintelligible for 1500 years. And that, of course, would prove that the New Testament is not the word of God, but the work of poorly educated men with poor communication skills. Personally, I find that very difficult to swallow. The New Testament is the word of God and honest men who sought to understand it have been able to understand it throughout the history of Church as evidenced by the fact that we find the true doctrines of the New Testament in the writings of Christians throughout the history of the Church down to the present day. We do not, however, find some of the core doctrines held by most Baptists during the first 1500 years of the Church.