Category: Columns
Article X of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: Last things
Following is another in a series of columns on The Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
The world as we know it ends with the return of Jesus, but it’s not really the end of the world, for Christ creates new heavens and a new earth.
Article X of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:
“God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.”
Contemporary culture embraces the drama of a cataclysmic end of the world as we know it. In the 1979 film, Mad Max, a shortage of fossil fuels drives the breakdown of society, prompting leather-clad hoodlums in bizarre vehicles to terrorize anyone with a full tank of gas.
In Planet of the Apes, astronaut George Tayler discovers he has traveled through space and time, returning to an earth where humans are mute and loud-mouthed armor-wearing primates are in charge.
And in Ray Bradbury’s short story, “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains,” a robotic house continues to serve its human tenants long after they have become burnt silhouettes on the wall, presumably the victims of a nuclear holocaust.
Whether entertaining or horrifying, the end of the world is a topic of great interest and much debate. World religions and cults often contrive detailed apocalyptic views, including specific dates that, when missed, leave their leaders red-faced and their followers asking neighbors to return the cookware they thought they would never need again.
Christians have reliable information about the end of days through God’s revelation in Scripture. And while we may vigorously debate the order of events surrounding the return of Christ, we can all agree on seven biblical truths about how the world ends.
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Article IX of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: The kingdom
Following is another in a series of columns on The Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
The kingdom is God’s reign, his authority to rule.
Article IX of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:
“The Kingdom of God includes both His general sovereignty over the universe and His particular kingship over men who willfully acknowledge Him as King. Particularly the Kingdom is the realm of salvation into which men enter by trustful, childlike commitment to Jesus Christ. Christians ought to pray and to labor that the Kingdom may come and God’s will be done on earth. The full consummation of the Kingdom awaits the return of Jesus Christ and the end of this age.”
The terms kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, and kingdom (with reference to the kingdom of God/heaven) appear nearly 150 times in Scripture. None of these passages offers a straightforward definition of the kingdom. Yet the kingdom is proclaimed throughout the Old Testament and is the primary focus of Jesus’ teaching.
Many of Jesus’ parables tell us what the kingdom is like. The apostles preach the gospel of the kingdom – the good news of redemption and restoration received through faith in Jesus Christ. And biblical prophecies of the last days point toward a time when God’s kingdom comes in its fullness.
So, what is the kingdom of God? Simply stated, the kingdom is God’s reign, his authority to rule.
As George Ladd notes, “The primary meaning of both the Hebrew word malkuth in the Old Testament and of basileia in the New Testament is the rank, authority and sovereignty exercised by a king. A basileia may indeed be a realm over which a sovereign exercises authority; and it may be the people who belong to that realm and over whom authority is exercised; but these are secondary and derived meanings. First of all, a kingdom is the authority to rule, the sovereignty of the king.”
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Article VIII of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: The Lord’s Day
Following is another in a series of columns on the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
The earliest Christians shifted their day of observance from Saturday to Sunday because Christ appeared to his disciples on the first day of the week.
Article VIII of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:
“The first day of the week is the Lord’s Day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private. Activities on the Lord’s Day should be commensurate with the Christian’s conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
The designation of Sunday as the Lord’s Day is rooted in Scripture and in Christian tradition dating back to the days of the apostles. For example, Luke records that the apostle Paul and the disciples gathered in Troas for the breaking of bread and preaching on “the first day of the week” (Acts 20:7).
However, since a Jewish day begins at sundown, worship in Troas took place on Saturday night as Westerners reckon time. It helps us empathize with the sleepy-headed Eutychus, who wearied of Paul’s preaching and fell to his death from a third-story window, necessitating a miracle to restore his life (Acts 20:8-12).
Elsewhere in the New Testament, we see followers of Jesus gathering for worship on the first day of the week, which came to be known as the Lord’s Day (1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10). For Israelites, this could be any time from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday.
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Article VII of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Following is another in a series of columns on the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
Southern Baptists refer to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as ordinances, meaning the Lord commands believers to carry out these symbolic activities, which picture the finished work of Christ and prepare us for his imminent return.
Article VII of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:
“Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is a prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
“The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.”
Southern Baptists refer to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as ordinances. That means the Lord commands believers to carry out these symbolic activities, which picture the finished work of Christ and prepare us for his imminent return.
Ordinances have no saving value, for a person receives everlasting life only by faith in Jesus. Even so, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are important acts of obedience.
Some, like Roman Catholics, refer to baptism and Holy Communion as sacraments, meaning they are necessary for salvation.
Others, like Presbyterians, also call baptism and the Lord’s Supper sacraments, but that doesn’t mean they are necessary for salvation. Rather, they are “means of God’s grace” – special ways that God speaks to our hearts, gives us a visible way of establishing the difference between believers and unbelievers, and prepares us to serve him.
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Article VI of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: The church
Following is another in a series of columns on The Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
The church is neither a physical structure nor a man-made institution. It is the living, breathing body of Christ spoken of in two ways in Scripture: as a local body of believers, and as the universal body of the redeemed under the Lordship of Jesus.
Article VI of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:
“A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
“The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
The Greek word translated “church” is ekklesia and means “called out ones.” The term appears more than 100 times in the New Testament and refers to the community of believers over which Jesus is head (Col. 1:18). Thus, the church is neither a physical structure nor a man-made institution. It is the living, breathing body of Christ.
The Bible generally speaks of the church in two significant ways: as universal and local.
The universal church is the complete body of believers who have trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior. It cannot be divided along denominational lines, although such distinctions provide clarity in beliefs and practices.
Membership in the universal church cannot be bought, begged, stolen, inherited, earned, or conferred by any human or angelic being. It comes only by the grace of God through faith in Jesus (John 1:12; 5:24; Eph. 2:8-9). Key passages that address the universal church include Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 15:9; Eph. 1:22-23; 5:29-30; Col. 1:18; and Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9.
Most New Testament references to the church focus on local congregations. The local church may be defined as a body of baptized believers in Jesus who live in the same community and gather at a common place for worship, fellowship, instruction, and service.
Scripture instructs Christians to identify with a local church in order to grow spiritually (Heb. 10:24-25). It is through the local church that believers exercise their spiritual gifts and take part in worship, fellowship, Bible study, church discipline, missions, and other communal activities. Key passages that address the local church include Acts 9:31; Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 1:2; 16:19; and Col. 4:15.
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