Article by Traever Guingrich, pastor of Grace Chapel Reformed Baptist Church, Argo, AL (original source – https://www.gracechapelrbc.com/about_whatisareformedbaptistchurch)

“Reformed Baptist” is a term not particularly well-known in evangelical circles. The name indicates both historical roots and distinct theological characteristics.

Historically, a Reformed Baptist identifies with a tradition that emerged directly from the Reformed Protestant movement. During the Reformation in 16th -17th century England there was a group of churchmen called the Puritans. The Puritans were believers who desired to see the church fully reform beyond any vestiges of Roman Catholicism or any other false teaching. There were three primary groups that made up the Puritans: Presbyterians, Independents, and Particular Baptists, which today are referred to as “Reformed Baptists.” They all shared common beliefs in the gospel and reformational doctrines, but the Baptists were set apart by a few beliefs. They believed in a church independent from state control that was governed congregationally and overseen in each local congregation by a group of elders. Also, they rejected the doctrine of paedobaptism (infant baptism). The summation of their beliefs were written down in the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689. Adhering to this historic reformed confession of faith is the primary distinctive of a Reformed Baptist. It shares themes and most of its language with the confessions of the other Puritans—the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians and the Savoy Declaration of the Independents, yet it seeks to correct the theological errors that persisted in each.

Theologically, there are several key characteristics that accompanying being a Reformed Baptist. Most simply, it means we are both Reformed and Baptist. We believe in the 5 Solas of the Reformation that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone to the glory of God alone. And that Scripture alone is the sole infallible authority for the faith and practice of the church.

Additionally, being Reformed means…

1. We are Calvinistic. We believe in the doctrines of grace.

Total Depravity (Man is spiritually dead and thus unable to turn to God in faith and repentance prior to being born again. Each man is a free agent but does not possess free will, because it is not within his nature to trust in Christ.)

Unconditional Election (God chose to save us of His own free will and not based on our foreseen faith or good works.)

Limited Atonement or Particular Redemption (Christ’s work to atone for our sins was effectual and objective and therefore was only accomplished for the elect, though all mankind benefits in some manner from His redemptive work for His church. He atoned for the sins of all men without distinction, but not all men without exception. He saved the whole world from their sins in that His elect come from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.)

Irresistible Grace (God regenerates us in order to make us willing followers of Christ and not vice versa. Grace will always be resisted until God choses to cause us to be born again, after which we joyfully comply with grace. In other words, regeneration precedes faith. The grace of regeneration does not require our acceptance, but rather creates it.)

Perseverance/Preservation of the Saints (All those whom God elects and regenerates are also caused to persevere in the faith by the work of the Holy Spirit. Though there are those that once proclaimed the faith but now reject it, they are understood to never have been born again (1 John 2:19). Jesus does not lose any of His sheep.)

2. We are confessional.

As a statement of faith and rule of practice we hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession. We believe it to be subservient to Scripture. It is neither infallible nor inerrant like Scripture is. Yet, we believe it to be a healthy and accurate summation of the true Christian faith. Please see our preface to the confession here.

3. We are Covenantal or hold to Covenant Theology.

We believe the covenants in Scripture are the framework in which redemptive history transpired. We believe that before creation God made a Covenant of Redemption among the persons of the Trinity that formalized the work and role of each person in God’s decree to allow sin and to redeem a people for Himself. We believe Adam was under a Covenant of Works in the garden to obey and live. We believe the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic Covenants are not salvific in and of themselves, but provided the context and groundwork for Christ to enter into creation and merit salvation for fallen men. We believe the New Covenant is the Covenant of Grace which is made with the true church in the New Testament. It is unbreakable and retroactive to Old Testament saints who received New Covenant benefits via the Old Covenant economy (the summation of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic Covenants). We believe the church is a reconstituted Israel with no racial or ethnic boundaries. All those with true saving faith have been saved by the work accomplished by Christ in the New Covenant. Though the promise of salvation by the Messiah was prevalent and progressively revealed in greater detail in the Old Covenant, no one has ever been saved by their obedience to the command “do this and live” that was operative in the Old Covenant context.

4. We practice the Regulative Principle of Worship.

We only implement into formal public worship the elements of worship which are explicitly prescribed in God’s Word. We do not believe that whatever is not explicitly condemned is allowable (i.e., the Normative Principle). Therefore, the church is limited to practicing only the elements of worship given to us— the public reading and preaching of Scripture, prayer, singing, and the two ordinances or sacraments of the New Covenant (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). We further believe that the Regulative Principle of Worship restricts baptism and the Lord’s Supper to professing believers that have given evidence of true conversion.

5. We believe in the Moral Law of God.

The Moral Law of God is based in God’s character and is therefore always true and applicable. In the context of God’s covenants there is additional Positive Law for each covenant that likewise must be obeyed at the time that each covenant is in place. The positive law for Adam in the Covenant of Works was to not eat of the fruit of a certain tree and to work and keep the garden. In the Abrahamic Covenant the positive law of circumcision was implemented. In the Mosaic covenant there were extensive ceremonial and civil positive laws added. In the Davidic Covenant there were positive laws for the kings and his subjects to adhere to. However, all those positive laws are abrogated in the New Covenant in which we are given new positive laws such as baptism, the Lord’s Supper, evangelism, etc. Nevertheless, from the beginning of creation into eternity the Moral Law of God has been in place. It is known to all men by virtue of being made in the image and likeness of God (though men do indeed seek to suppress it). It is summarized in the Ten Commandments which are therefore still applicable for believers today. And it was further summarized by Jesus when He said the greatest commandments was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the 2nd greatest commandment is the love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commands.

Additionally, being Baptist means…

1. We practice credobaptism (the baptism of professing believers alone).

We only baptize those that give a credible profession faith and evidence that accompanies their sincerity. We also only baptize by the method of immersion to accurately capture the symbolism of putting the old man to death and rising again in Christ.

We do not practice infant baptism. We believe infant baptism is a distortion of biblical teaching that only began in isolated areas in the mid-3rd century. In addition to the historical data, credobaptism by immersion is confirmed by a correct reading of Scripture, a correct application of the Regulative Principle of Worship, a complete application of Reformed hermeneutics, and by correct Covenant Theology. Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are fenced (restricted) by the same principle— to be given to professing believers only. Likewise membership in the church is only available to baptized professing believers. We recognize we differ from the majority of the Reformed tradition in this regard, but biblical doctrine has never been a matter of democracy or counting noses.

2. We are congregational.

There is no authoritative structure above the local church. Each local church is governed by a plurality of elders and deacons. However, it is the gathered assembly that elects its own elders and deacons and voices its decision on matters of worship, doctrine, and discipline. This means we are not part of any denomination.

While each congregation/local church is independent and autonomous, Reformed Baptists do associate with like-minded churches. Independency has never meant isolation. We work together with other Reformed Baptist churches by way of both formal and informal Associations. These associations do not exercise control or authority over individual churches, nor do they interfere with the affairs of their member churches. The local church is independent of external control and cannot and must not be subordinate to a higher central government.

While modern day Baptists are genealogically descended from the Particular Baptists, it would be inaccurate to refer to most of them as “Reformed Baptists.” They have largely lost their theological and confessional identities. Most Baptists today have drifted far afield from the faith and practice of their theological forefathers. In fact, they are for the most part unidentifiable with our Puritan roots. Reformed Baptists on the other hand seek to preserve the orthodoxy fought for and practiced by those that have gone before us in the Reformed, Puritan, Particular Baptist tradition.

Article by Tom Hicks, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Clinton, LA. He serves on the board of directors for Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary and is an adjunct professor of historical theology for the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies.

(original source – https://founders.org/2017/03/30/what-is-a-reformed-baptist/)

What is it that makes a “Reformed Baptist” distinct from other kinds of Baptists and Reformed folks? Reformed Baptists grew out of the English Reformation, emerging from Independent paedobaptist churches in the 1640’s for some very specific theological reasons, and they held to a particular kind of theology. Here are some of the theological identity markers of Reformed Baptist churches.

1. The Regulative Principle of Worship. This distinctive is put first because it is one of the main reasons Calvinistic Baptists separated from the Independent paedobaptists. The Particular (or Reformed) Baptists come from Puritanism, which sought to reform the English church according to God’s Word, especially its worship. When that became impossible due to Laud’s authoritative opposition, the Puritans separated (or were removed) from the English church. Within the Independent wing of Puritan separation, some of them saw a need to apply the regulative principle of worship to infant baptism as well, considering this to be the consistent outworking of the common Puritan mindset. The earliest Baptists believed that the elements of public worship are limited to what Scripture commands. John 4:23 says, “True worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (see also Matt 15:9). The revealed “truth” of Scripture limits the worship of God to what is prescribed in Scripture. The Second London Baptist Confession 22.1 says:

The acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.

Because the Bible does not command infant baptism, early Baptists believed that infant baptism is forbidden in public worship, and the baptism of believers alone is to be practiced in worship. This regulative principle of worship limits the elements of public worship to the Word preached and read, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, prayer, the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and whatever else the Scripture commands.

Many Baptists today have completely abandoned the regulative principle of worship in favor of entertainment-oriented worship, consumerism, individual preferences, emotionalism, and pragmatism. Such Baptists have abandoned the very principle that led to their initial emergence from paedobaptism. One wonders whether a church can depart from a doctrine necessary to the emergence of Baptists in their English context and still rightly identify as a “Baptist” church.

2. Covenant Theology. While Reformed paedobaptist churches sometimes insist that they alone are the heirs of true covenant theology, historic Reformed Baptists claimed to abandon the practice of infant baptism precisely because of the Bible’s covenant theology.

Reformed Baptists agree with Reformed paedobaptists that God made a covenant of works with Adam, which he broke and so brought condemnation on the whole human race (Rom 5:18). They also say that God mercifully made a covenant of grace with His elect people in Christ (Rom 5:18), which is progressively revealed in the Old Testament and formally established in the new covenant at the death of Christ (Heb 9:15-16). The only way anyone was saved under the old covenant was by virtue of this covenant of grace in Christ, such that there is only one gospel, or one saving promise, running through the Scriptures.

Baptist covenant theologians, however, believe they are more consistent than their paedobaptist brothers with respect to covenant theology’s own hermeneutic of New Testament priority. According to the New Testament, the Old Testament promise to “you and your seed” was ultimately made to Christ, the true seed (Gal 3:16). Abraham’s physical children were a type of Christ, but Christ Himself is the reality. The physical descendants were included in the old covenant, not because they are all children of the promise, but because God was preserving the line of promise, until Christ, the true seed, came. Now that Christ has come, there is no longer any reason to preserve a physical line. Rather, only those who believe in Jesus are sons of Abraham, true Israelites, members of the new covenant, and the church of the Lord Jesus (Gal 3:7). In both the Old and New Testaments, the “new covenant” is revealed to be a covenant of believers only, who are forgiven of their sins, and have God’s law written on their hearts (Heb 8:10-12).

Baptists today who adhere to dispensationalism believe that the physical offspring of Abraham are the rightful recipients of the promises of God to Abraham’s seed. But they have departed from their historic Baptist roots and from the hermeneutical vision of the organic unity of the Bible cast by their forefathers. Baptist theologian James Leo Garrett correctly notes that dispensationalism is an “incursion” into Baptist theology, which only emerged in the last one hundred fifty years or so. See James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study (Macon, GA: Mercer, 2009), 560-570.

3. Calvinism. Because Reformed Baptists held to the covenant theology (federalism) of the 17th century, they were all Calvinists. The theological covenants of the old federal theology undergirded the early Baptist expressions of their Calvinistic soteriology. When Adam broke the covenant of works, God cursed all human beings with totally depraved natures (Isa 24:5-6), making them unable and unwilling to come to Christ for salvation.

But God didn’t leave the human race to die in sin; rather, in eternity past, God unconditionally chose a definite number of people for salvation and formed a covenant of redemption with Christ about their salvation (Isa 53; 54:10; Lk 22:29). At the appointed time, Christ came into the world and obeyed the covenant of redemption, fulfilling the terms of the covenant of works that Adam broke. In the covenant of redemption, Jesus kept God’s law perfectly, died on the cross, atoned for the sins of His chosen people, and rose from the dead, having effectually secured salvation for them (Heb 9:12).

God made the covenant of grace with His elect people (Gen 3:15; Heb 9:15-16) in which He applies all the blessings of life merited by Christ in the covenant of redemption. The Holy Spirit mercifully unites God’s chosen people to Christ in the covenant of grace, giving them blessings of life purchased by Christ’s life and death. God irresistibly draws them to Himself in their effectual calling (Jn 6:37), gives them a living heart (Ezek 36:26), a living faith and repentance (Eph 2:8-9; Acts 11:18), a living verdict of justification (Rom 3:28), and a living and abiding holiness (1 Cor 1:30), causing them to persevere to the end (1 Cor 1:8). All of these life-blessings are the merits of Jesus Christ, purchased in the covenant of redemption, applied in the covenant of grace.

The doctrine of the covenants is the theological soil in which Calvinism grew among early Baptists. Calvinistic Baptists today need to recover the rich federal theology of their forefathers so that the doctrines of grace they’ve rediscovered will be preserved for future generations.

4. The Law of God. Reformed Baptists believe the 10 commandments are the summary of God’s moral law (Exod 20; Matt 5; Rom 2:14-22). They believe that unless we rightly understand the law, we cannot understand the gospel. The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ kept the law for our justification by living in perfect obedience to earn the law’s blessing of life and by dying a substitutionary death to pay the law’s penalty. But the gospel isn’t only a promise of justification. It’s also the good news that Christ promises graciously to give the Holy Spirit to His people to kill their lawlessness and to make them more and more lawful. Titus 2:14 says that Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.”

The Second London Baptist Confession, 19.5 says:

The moral law does for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof,(10) and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it;(11) neither does Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.(12)

10. Rom 13:8-10; Jas 2:8,10-12
11. Jas 2:10,11
12. Matt 5:17-19; Rom 3:31

Therefore, while justified believers are free from the law as a covenant of works to earn justification and eternal life (Rom 7:1-6), God gives them His law as a standard of conduct or rule of life in their sanctification (Rom 8:4, 7). God’s moral law, summarized in the 10 commandments (Rom 2:14-24; 13:8-10; Jas 2:8-11), including the Sabbath commandment (Mk 2:27; Heb 4:9-10), is an instrument of sanctification in the life of the believer. Believers rest in Christ for their total salvation. Christ takes their burdens of guilt and shame, and His people take upon themselves the yoke of His law, and they learn obedience from a humble and gentle Teacher. 1 John 5:3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”

Baptists who hold to new covenant theology, or progressive covenantalism, do not have the same view of the law as the dominant stream of their Baptist forebears.

5. Confessional. Most of the early Baptists, both in England and in America, held to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689. While certainly not all Calvinistic Baptists subscribed to this confession, it was the main influence among Baptists in England and America after its publication. This confession, based on the Westminster Confession (Presbyterian) and the Savoy Declaration (Independent), was originally edited and published in 1677, but formally adopted by Baptist churches in 1689 after English persecution lifted.

Historic Reformed Baptists were thoroughgoing confessionalists. They were not bare “biblicists.” Biblicists deny words and doctrines not explicitly stated in Scripture, and they deny that the church’s historic teaching about the Bible has any secondary authority in biblical interpretation. The early Baptists, however, did not believe that individual church members or individual pastors should interpret the Bible divorced from the historic teaching of the church (Heb 13:7). They believed that the Bible alone is sufficient for doctrine and practice, but they also believed the Bible must be explained and read in light of the church’s interpretive tradition (1 Tim 3:15), which uses words other than the Bible (Acts 2:31 is one refutation of biblicism, since it explains Psalm 16 in words not used in that Psalm). Reformed Baptists believed that their theology was anchored in the church’s rich theological heritage and that it was a natural development of the doctrine of the church in light of the central insights of the Reformation (sola Scriptura: no baptizing infants; sola fide: only converts are God’s people).

Under the guise of upholding Sola Scriptura, many Christians today seek to read the Bible independently and come to their own private conclusions about what it means without consulting the church’s authorized teachers or the orthodox confessions of faith. But that’s not what Sola Scriptura historically meant. Scripture teaches that the church is the “pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). The church as a whole is charged with interpreting the Bible, and God has authorized teachers in the church throughout history. Therefore, while every individual Christian is responsible to understand Scripture for himself, no Christian should study the Bible without any consideration of what the great teachers of the past have taught about the Bible.

The majority of historic Reformed Baptists held to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 because they believed it is a compendium of theology that best summarizes the teaching of Scripture in small compass.

Excerpt from an article by Keith Throop responding to R. Scott Clark who does not allow for Reformed Baptists to call themselves “Reformed.” I’m with Keith on this:

…I especially do not agree with his (R. Scott Clark’s) criticism of Reformed Baptists for their use of the term Reformed as a reference to themselves. Here are the specific comments with which I take exception:

Calling a Baptist “Reformed” is like calling Presbyterians “Baptist” because they believe in believer’s baptism. The Reformed churches do practice the baptism of unbaptized believers but they also baptize the infants of believers. No self-respecting, confessional Baptist should accept me as “Baptist” and Reformed folk should resist labeling anyone who rejects most of Reformed theology as “Reformed.”

There are several points to be made in response to these comments, but before I list them I want to make something clear, namely that I do not pretend to speak for all who would call themselves Reformed Baptists. I have entitled this post, “Why I Call Myself a Reformed Baptist,” and I hope that I may give a good, brief accounting for this in this post. But it must be said that I do not see myself as a leader of the movement, let alone one of its primary spokesmen. In fact, the movement is diverse enough not to claim any one person as the most appropriate spokesman. For example, back in 2007-2008 I conducted a poll on this blog that revealed some significant diversity among those who would call themselves Reformed Baptists.

With these caveats in mind, I will now address the above comments made by Clark. First, I do not agree at all with his assertion that “calling a Baptist ‘Reformed’ is like calling Presbyterians ‘Baptist’ because they believe in believer’s baptism.” I am, frankly, surprised that Clark would make use of such an analogy when he must know that what makes the Baptist position distinctive is not that we advocate the baptism of believers (which we certainly do) but rather that we advocate the baptism of believers only. When a Presbyterian begins to assert that position, then I will accept his calling himself a “Presbyterian Baptist,” even if he doesn’t hold to other historically distinctive Baptist positions, such as our view of church government, which asserts the autonomy of the local church in matters of governance. But, then, the term Presbyterian so used would clearly indicate this difference, wouldn’t it? And this is really no different than the way the term Baptist qualifies my use of the term Reformed.

Second, Clark’s comments seem to assume the idea that there is a monolithic historical understanding of the meaning of the English word reformed. But this is simply not true. There are broader and more narrow senses in which the word may be used, and not all of these require the specific understanding to which he apparently wishes to restrict usage of the term. In addition, I see no reason why a modifier cannot be attached to the word that in effect alters and qualifies its meaning so as to rule out the kind of misunderstanding that Clark is apparently concerned about. One such modifier – as I have already noted – is the term baptist, which immediately communicates a distinctive use of the word reformed.

Perhaps it would be helpful to discuss at least three senses in which I believe the term Reformed has been used, all of which have application to my own usage of the term when I call myself a Reformed Baptist. I will list three ways in which I believe I have seen the term used, beginning with the most broad sense and moving to the most narrow sense.

First, the term Reformed can be used in a broad sense to describe that which is changed for the better, and in our discussion it refers to the changes that were made by Protestants in their efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with Scripture. In this sense it could refer to any person or group that seeks to be consistent in reforming the church in this way. I believe John Quincy Adams had in mind this usage of the term in his famous little book Baptists: The Only Thorough Religious Reformers, and this is one sense in which I intend the word to be taken when I describe myself as a Reformed Baptist. It communicates my commitment to the principle indicated by the slogan semper reformanda (“always reforming”), and it declares my conviction that it is the Particular Baptists who have been more faithful reformers than their Presbyterian brothers, especially with regard to the issues of church government and baptism, as indicated above. Indeed, in this sense I think we have more right to use the term than they do.

Second, the term reformed can refer to the broader Protestant tradition characterized by principles held by most of the early Reformers, and not just those in Geneva, for example. These principles may be summed up by the five Reformation precepts often referred to as “the solas.” These include the principle of sola scriptura (that Scripture alone is our ultimate authority), the principle of solus Christus (that we are saved by Christ alone), sola gratia (that we are saved by God’s grace alone), sola fide (that we are saved through faith alone), and soli Deo gloria (that all is to the glory of God alone). Thus when I call myself a Reformed Baptist I mean to indicate that I wholeheartedly embrace these distinctive principles of the Reformation.

Third, I agree that there is a more narrow use of the term as Clark affirms, namely to refer to those who follow the traditions that have come particularly from Calvin’s reforming work in Geneva. This would include not only the Swiss Reformed, but also the Scottish and Dutch Reformed and the numerous Presbyterian groups that have followed from each of these traditions. I also agree with Clark that we do not want to confuse Baptists with these Reformed groups. However, this is precisely why I call myself a Reformed Baptist.

The term Baptist clearly qualifies my use of the term Reformed. And when I use the terms together this way, I do not think I am doing anything essentially different than did those English Baptists who based the Baptist Confession of 1689 largely upon the Westminster Confession of Faith. They clearly wanted to identify themselves as in the mainstream of the Reformed tradition in one sense (particularly with regard to Calvinist soteriology and Covenant Theology), while at the same time distinguishing themselves in ways that demonstrated how they had reformed more thoroughly than had their Presbyterian brethren. This – together with the reasons already listed – is precisely why I call myself a Reformed Baptist.

I hope this post has helped to briefly clarify and defend my usage of the appellation Reformed Baptist to describe myself, and, despite Clark’s objections, I believe I have every right to use this description.