Tuesday, July 11, 2023

John Thomas (Christadelphian Founder) vs. the term "baptismal regeneration" and its relationship to sacraments working ex opere operato

The following is from John Thomas’ Clerical Theology Unscriptural. It is a dialogue between two people:

 

“Heresian” = Anglican who represents the ex opere operato understanding of the sacraments, including baptismal regeneration for infants

 

“Boanerges”: stand in for John Thomas himself representing the Christadelphian position.

 

Notice that, while Thomas does believe in the salvific efficacy of water baptism, it is contingent upon the recipient having adequate knowledge of the Gospel, and Thomas rejects the term “baptismal regeneration” as, in his view, it would mean accepting both ex opere operato as well as infant baptism:

 

[Boanerges]: When Satan thus became Lord of “the Church,” baptismal regeneration was decreed to be God’s truth: and his bishops and clergy (I mean Satan’s, not God’s) such as the right reverend fathers of London, Exeter, and Oxford, and their adherents, became the zealous stickers for the fable. So long however as men “held fast the form of sound words” delivered by the apostles, there was no scope for the ideas contained in “the strife of words and perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, and who supposed that gain was godliness” (1 Tim. vi. 5; 2 Tim. i.13). “Infant baptism,” “baptismal regeneration,” “immortal soul,” and a multitude of like phrases, do not belong to “the form of sound words.” There is nothing about them in the Bible.  (John Thomas, Clerical Theology Unscriptural, or, The Wisdom of the Clergy Proved to be Folly, in Contending for the Faith From the Writings of Dr. J. Thomas [West Beach, South Australia: Eureka Press PTY LTD., 1990], 120)

 

HERESIAN: . . . do you in rejecting the doctrine of baptismal regeneration also reject the doctrine of baptism for the remission of sin? Is it not a scriptural doctrine?

 

BOANERGES: If by “baptism” is to be understood the sprinkling, pouring, or dipping of a man in water, saying “I baptize thee into the name,” etc., without regard to faith, or the quality of the faith which is determined by the things believed, I say that the dogma of remission of sins in baptism is unscriptural. There can be no remission of sins without belief of “The truth as it is in Jesus;” for it is the “faith that works by love and purifies the heart” that is counted to a man for righteousness. He must not only have faith, but it must be the “one faith” (Eph. iv. 5), even the belief of “the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ,” for the condition is, “He that believes the gospel (Mark xvi. 15-16; Rom. i. 16-17) and it baptized shall be saved.” (Ibid., 136)

 

HERESIAN: But divines teach, and man repeat it after them, that if a man be “born of the Spirit,” it is quite unimportant for him to be “born of water.”

 

BOANERGES: “Divines” teach many very foolish and pernicious dogmas, and this among the number. The Lord Jesus, who is to possess the kingdom, says that no man can enter it unless he be born of two things, namely, “out of water” εξ υδατος, ex hydatos, “and of the spirit.” The spirit is the begetter. He is the Father of lights, and begets men and women by the word of truth (James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 22-25), through the belief of which they are brought into the water. Hence, they are said to be “sanctified and cleansed by the bath of water with the word;” and thus “by one spirit they are all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. xii. 13). It is good evidence that a man is not born of the spirit who is not born of water.

 

HERESIAN: I apprehend that few will be willing to admit that. Would you say that all who are born of water are born of the spirit? Are there not many pious people who have not been baptized, who are far more circumspect than multitudes who are very zealous for water?

 

BOANERGES: I do not mean to say any such thing. The vast majority who go into the water come out of it as they went in, namely, “dead in trespasses and sins.” No immersed man is born of the spirit who does not understand and believe with “a good and honest heart” (Matt. xiii. 19, 23; Luke viii. 15) the things of the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ. A man who is begotten of the Spirit believes the truth, and his faith “works by love” and purifies his heart and induces him gladly to submit to whatever “the law of faith” requires. Many people are “pious” or have an ignorant zeal of God; but such piety is not the fruit of the Spirit. (Ibid., 139)