Fundamental vs Primitive

There are 110,000,000 Baptists in the world, but I think there must be at least 175,000,000 types of Baptist to pick from.

 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever

When Christ said, "The wind bloweth where it will....so is every one that is born of the Spirit", he was not implementing something new, he was revealing a mystery of old, something that had always been, but not known prior to his appearing.

Likewise, when Peter made the declaration,” Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him”; there was nothing new about that, it was new to Peter, but nevertheless a revelation of something that had always been.

Just as Paul brings out in Ro 2, “when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law...show the work of the law written in their hearts”; again, there's nothing new there, it was something that had always been. God had always had a people from among the Gentiles, ”For more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath the husband.” [Gal 4:27]

Psalms 87 refers to this people, and Christ alludes to them when He says,”There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,...and unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon”, and “there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian”. It was not the priest nor the Levite who stopped to help him who had fell among the robbers, nay they passed by, but it was one of the Samaritans, with whom the Jews had no dealings, that was moved with compassion to help the man. It was the magi that traveled such a great distance from the east to worship the King, and not those that dwelt in Jerusalem a mere five miles away, and it was to these magi that God communicated to in a dream. The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, and the queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

If there existed a people that belonged to God outside of the Mosaic economy (..and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold..), is it blasphemous to reason that there exists today a people outside of the visible church, redeemed by the blood, born of the Spirit, with the law written in their hearts? I believe 'more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath the husband' may well still apply today.

David was made to hope while on his mother's breast, and John the baptist jumped for joy in his mother's womb because 'the wind bloweth where it will' and is not constrained to the written word, or to the preaching or hearing of the gospel. It's how those Gentiles who had not the law came to have the work of the law written in their hearts. 'The last Adam became a life-giving spirit'; Christ always has been that spirit that blows where it wills and gives life to whom he wills. There's nothing new about that. He 'is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.' It's this writer's opinion that there's nothing new about any of the spiritual tenets of the New Covenant. They're new only because the mysteries had not been heretofore revealed until the time came for the removal of the old; i.e. '...the removing of those things that are shaken.....that those things which are not shaken may remain.'; 'In that He saith, A new covenant he hath made the first old...'.

We 'primitives' believe that there's nothing new about the effectual call described above; i.e. '....The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live'. We believe the effectual call to be unpreventable and irresistible, and that it is synonymous with regeneration and the free gift of eternal life. We make a distinction between the effectual call and the gospel call. We do not deny that the effectual call (regeneration) could possibly occur in close proximity with the believer's acceptance of the gospel call, we only recognize the differences between the two, and that life must be given before belief can occur.

“The effectual call is a call to eternal salvation; The gospel call is a call to repentance and faith (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). The effectual call is a call to sonship; The gospel call is a call to discipleship. God speaks directly in the effectual call; God speaks through men in the gospel call. The effectual call is always obeyed; The gospel call is frequently disobeyed, shunned, and resisted. The effectual call is a creation; The gospel call is a communication. The effectual call is directed to the dead; The gospel call is directed to the living. The effectual call is an internal call; The gospel call is an external appeal. The effectual call produces life (2 Tim 1:9); The gospel call produces light (2 Tim 1:10). The sinner responds involuntarily in the effectual call (like Lazarus). The gospel call, however, calls for a voluntary, decisive response (“...harden not your hearts' – Heb 3:15). The conclusive testimony of Scripture is that the effectual call precedes the gospel call and that the effectual call gives a man spiritual life, while the gospel call gives a man knowledge and understanding. This distinction between regeneration and gospel conversion is essential.” Quotation from 'Born Again', by Elder Michael L. Gowens
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I've wanted to expound on this thread since I first became aware of it but duty calls; Domestic issues on the home front have been consuming my time lately.

I didn't really know where to end this post, so here it is, I'll wait for comments to comment on.

Larry.

 

The question in the OP stems from the similarity a casual observer might recognize in the terms "fundamental Baptist" and "primitive Baptist." The similarity is accidental.

"Fundamentalism" was a movement, mostly in 20th century America, to combat and defeat the liberalism that was taking the old denominations. Although Baptists were prominent in the movement, it was self-consciously interdenominational. So a "Fundamental Baptist" is simply a Baptist who is associated in one way or another with that movement.

Primitives, on the other hand, are well-explained in the earlier posts.

 

Actually it's been my experience that when a lot of the 'casual observers' first hear of 'primitive' Baptists, they imagine something along the lines of snake handlers out of the mountains.

Larry

 

I'm interested in how a broad view of the word "salvation" cannot sustain biblical scrutiny. I've found that the widespread narrow view of this word is the one that cannot sustain scrutiny. Of course a key example of this is 1 Tim. 4:16.

Now, while the phrases "time salvation" and "conditional time salvation" are probably poor ones, the concepts behind them are nonetheless solid. That the term "salvation" in scripture covers more than just how one gets to heaven is undeniable.