Ceremonial Qualifications for Church Membership

Prayer: That each and every one of us may become more faithful Christians and that we may learn to love and study the Word of God.

2. The ceremonial qualification for church-membership. This qualification is baptism. There can, according to the Scriptures, be no visible church without baptism. An observance of this ordinance is the believer's first public act of obedience to Christ. Regeneration, repentance, and faith are private matters between God and the soul. They involve internal piety, but of this piety there must be an external manifestation. This manifestation is made in baptism. The penitent, regenerate believer is baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:18-20).

There is a visible, symbolic expression of a new relationship to the three Persons of the Godhead - a relationship entered into in repentance, faith, and regeneration. We are said to be baptized into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3-5). We profess our reliance on His death for salvation; and we emblematically declare that as He died for sin, so we have died to sin, and have risen from our death in trespasses and sins to newness of life. We solemnly commemorate the burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and are ourselves symbolically buried to the world.

In baptism our sins are declaratively remitted - formally washed away (Acts 22:16). Washing in water frees the body from literal impurity. Baptism is a symbolic release of the soul from the defilement of sin. There is an actual, a real remission of sins when we believe in Christ there is a declarative, formal, symbolic remission in baptism.

That the views, now presented, of the moral and ceremonial qualifications for church membership are in accordance with the New Testament will be seen by referring to the commission of Christ, as understood and executed by the apostles, on the day of Pentecost. The commission said, "Go, teach (make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:18-20).

A great awakening took place under Peter's preaching, and repenting thousands accepted salvation through Christ. It is added, "Then they that gladly received His word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41). Subsequently it is said, "The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). The converts to the faith were first baptized and then added to the church. This s h o w s baptism to be prerequisite to church-membership. It was so regarded at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles began to act under the commission of their risen Lord; and it is morally certain it was so regarded wherever they established churches. And as churches in all ages must be formed after the apostolic model, it follows that where penitent, regenerate, baptized believers in Christ are found, there are Scriptural materials for a church.

Such persons having first given themselves to the Lord, and then one another, in solemn covenant, agreeing to make the will of Christ as expressed in His word their rule of action, are, in the New Testament sense of the term, a church. Whether they are many or few in number, they are a church. But in the absence of penitent, regenerate, baptized believers in Christ, there cannot be a New Testament church
 

Discussion by Leader:

1. Why only saved people should be members of the church.

2. The danger of just getting people to join the church.

3. What evils would follow if we should "let down the bars" and receive unregenerate or lost people into the church.




Parts for Assignment:

1. What we mean by ceremonial qualifications.

2. Difference between private matters between the individual

andGod and a public or external manifestation.

3. Discuss baptism in the light of the New Testament.

4. What is the ceremonial meaning of baptism?

5. Why should baptism precede church membership?





Discussion Questions:

1. What does the word baptize mean?

2. Could sprinkling or pouring possibly meet the requirements of

the New Testament? If not, why not?

3. What constitutes New Testament baptism? Four prerequisites:

Person, Purpose, Mode, Authority.

4. Why do Baptist churches refuse Methodist, Campbellite,

immersions? What do these other baptisms lack?

5. Why should every Christian seek New Testament baptism?

6. Do we have any right to change baptism in any way? If not,

Why not?

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