The Truth About the “Church of Christ”

 INTRODUCTION

 A strange religious sect has joined the “Christian” community in the last century and a half. They are gaining a notable follow­ing of ill-taught people who are being convinced that this is the one true church and that it was actually founded by Jesus Christ on the day of Pentecost! They are completely warped, doctrinal­ly, on much of what the Bible teaches.

Eight of their biggest heresies relate to their “plan” of’ or “steps to salvation” as taught in the Church of Christ. They teach:

1.      SALVATION BY WORKS RATHER THAN BY THE GRACE OF GOD.

2.      BAPTISMAL REGENERATION-SINS ACTUALLY REMITTED IN THE WATERS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST BAP­TISTRY.

3.       THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS NOT ETERNAL; THAT A BORN-­AGAIN SOUL CAN LOSE HIS SALVATION AFTER ALL.

4.       THAT THEY HAVE A MONOPOLY ON SALVATION-THAT THEY ARE THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE CHURCH.

5.       THAT ONE CANNOT KNOW IN THIS LIFE THAT HE IS SAVED.

6.       THAT THEIR CHURCH HAS THE ONE AND ONLY BIBLE NAME.

7.       THAT CHRISTIANS MUST TAKE THE LORD’S SUPPER EVERY SUNDAY TO BE SCRIPTURAL.

8.       THAT TO WORSHIP WHERE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IS USED IS SINFUL AND DISOBEDIENT TO THE LORD.

In order to “prove” these points they use the most chopped-up portions of mismatched and ill-chosen verses imaginable. About three fourths of their “proof-texts” do not even relate to the sub­ject at hand. These dear people are in error about many other glorious themes of Scripture but the eight topics mentioned above are their prime mistakes, and on these we will spend most of our time in this book. May it bring enlightenment to many

and the knowledge of salvation to those who have not yet received eternal life as a free gift from a loving God.

Hugh Pyle

PREFACE

Those innocent looking church buildings! Some have stained-glass windows and a steeple on top. Many of their lawns are trim­med, and flowers bloom around the building. Ofttimes they oc­cupy prominent street corners in strategic locations. They have Sunday school rooms and parking lots.

And they have picked out a good name for themselves. They call themselves the “Church of Christ.” They have radio broadcasts. They conduct what they call “Gospel Meetings.” They print and distribute large quantities of religious literature. In many areas they are accepted by the public as a reputable Christian church. Many of their people are nice and congenial folk.

Alas, all that glitters is not gold!

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”-Prov. 14:12.

For these innocent buildings house a pernicious religious cult which has deceived countless thousands about God’s way of salvation and the way to Heaven! For years I have accumulated their literature. I have listened to their preachers. I have ex­amined their periodicals. I have read their books. I have talked to their “converts.” Poison is all the more dangerous when it is presented in the form of candy. Error is extremely dangerous when it comes disguised as truth.

Somebody needs to warn people about what this so-called “Church of Christ” believes and teaches. If you were hurrying down a highway toward a washed-out bridge and I did nothing to warn you, I would be a monstrous criminal. Could I be con­sidered anything less than a monstrous criminal if I could warn you about the danger of eternal damnation and refrained from doing so?

One word of explanation: This is not an attack upon any individual as such. There are some fine people caught up in this movement and some of them no doubt are saved folk who found the Lord before they got in (or in spite of their doctrine) and have just never been subjected to much sound Bible teaching. And no doubt many of the Church of Christ preachers are truly and sincerely deceived, having been brought up in the movement, and have never taken the trouble to discover the truth for themselves. The very fact that their ministers are argumentative debaters and their followers are taught to do likewise has no doubt led many of them to “come out swinging” and everything they study and learn is but considered a weapon with which they can make war on those who disagree.

I realize that most entrenched Church of Christ preachers and dyed-in-the-wool addicts to this movement are not going to sit still long enough to let this book help them. My hope and prayer is that many who are merely in the movement by marriage or convenience (or by accident) may be helped to see the truth of what they are really supporting, and that others who will be ap­proached by Church of Christ zealots may be warned before they plunge through the washed-out bridge.

Will you at least find out with me what this modern cult that calls itself “The Church of Christ” really teaches? And then will you be honest enough to compare it to what the Bible teaches? This could be your greatest discovery.

For here is a religion that uses a few scattered fragments of Scripture to deny the whole, magnificent revelation of God in the Bible.

Taking a text from the context, they end up with a pretext. This is how every false heresy develops.

They use obscure portions of Scripture to contradict the great eternal doctrines of God’s Word. One honest rule of Bible study is to always interpret the seemingly difficult or obscure portion in the light of the plain teaching of Scripture.

They write tracts about “rightly dividing” the Word, and end up wrongly distorting the Word. When plain sense makes com­mon sense, they invariably conclude with some other sense-often nonsense!

It is almost unbelievable that one religious sect cou  get so warped and utterly confused on the Bible.

They not only contradict the Bible; they constantly contradict themselves.

Like Catholics and Mormons, they insist that their church is the only true church and that they, alone, have the truth about salvation.

They are glaringly ignorant of the distinction between certain plain divisions of Scriptures. They cannot discern between:

Salvation and rewards

Churches and the church

The church and the kingdom

Relationship and fellowship

Faith and works

Backsliding and apostasy

It is sad. They frustrate the grace of God, ridicule the Spirit of God, distort the Word of God, warp the teaching of God, and minimize the salvation of God.

They do not believe that God means “eternal” or “everlasting” when He says it. Thus I have never known a Campbellite who was sure of his salvation. Strange that they would boisterously declare that they, alone, had the truth concerning the way to Heaven when none of them know that they are going there!

Their “converts” never have assurance. They are never taught, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life” (I John 5:13).

They miss all the blessings and by-products of the Christian life. They have no joy of salvation, no peace within, no assurance of eternal life, no fellowship with people who are born again.

They do not even recognize the spiritual giants of today who are winning many to Christ and building soul-winning churches-they spend their time ridiculing them. They glean no inspiration from the mighty soul winners of yesterday. They are kept in the dark.

They study the Bible not so much to win souls but to win proselytes and arguments.

To project their doctrines they must ignore (and thus lose the blessing of) hundreds of chapters and thousands of verses in the Bible!

Confusion is caused among believers, communities are divided, homes are split and families are heartbroken because of the divisions and rifts caused by this pernicious cult.

They do not understand the “it is finished” work of redemp­tion devised by God before the foundation of the world. They are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Their studies in prophecy are a hopeless hodgepodge. The reason for this is that you have to know what God has done and what He is now doing to discern what He is going to do!

In contrast to God’s way of salvation “by grace through faith” they teach salvation by works and by baptism. “Going to church is pre-eminently essential to going to Heaven, “says A. G. Hobbs of the Church of Christ on page 16 of his booklet, Is Church At­tendance Essential? Or note the error (and the contradiction) in this statement by John H. Banister in his booklet, God’s Way of Salvation, on page 15, “Good works are not necessary to becom­ing a Christian, but they are essential to being a faithful Chris­tian, and we cannot go to Heaven without faithfully performing them”! Or “We affirm that one is saved at the point of baptism,” states Evangelist L. L. Applegate of the Church of Christ, Vernon, Florida.

In fact, they can rarely, if ever, finish a message without finding their way to one or more of the 5 “water” verses they most frequently use, which (taken out of context) they insist teach salvation by baptism.

Their final conclusion is that their “saviour” is the baptistry in

a Church of Christ and that the mediator who stands between

the soul and God is the Church of Christ preacher who waits to

thus “wash away their sins.” No Roman Catholic priest ever had

a tighter case!

Will you read on, and thus learn the truth about the Church of Christ?

Chapter One

Bewitched, Biased and Bigoted

“.. who hath bewitched you?”-Gal. 3:1.

Would you believe that invalids and shut-ins have no chance to go to Heaven? Would you think it fair for policemen, firemen, nurses, doctors and others who are forced to work some Sundays, have no possibility of Heaven? Would you believe that lighthouse keepers, forest rangers and others whose work may be fifty miles from a town or a church, can never be saved? Do you believe that sailors on ships and soldiers on battlefields are to be shut out of Heaven, even if they are trusting in the blood of Christ for salvation?

After stating, “Therefore, going to church is pre-eminently es­sential to going to Heaven,” the Church of Christ booklet written by A. G. Hobbs concludes by stating, “The Church of Christ is the only religious institution that worships scripturally-without either addition or subtraction. This we will affirm in public debate-should anyone care to deny it.”

So there goes all opportunity for invalids, shut-ins and the others mentioned above, to ever go to Heaven!

In Alabama, a Baptist pastor in debate with a Campbellite said that if salvation is only by baptism in water, then a soldier dying on the battlefield could not be saved no matter how much he believed the Bible or trusted Christ. He would have no time to leave the battle, find water and locate a Campbellite preacher so he could make it to Heaven. The Church of Christ debator replied, “Well, it would be all right for an infidel to baptize him if he wanted to be saved!” Thus the infidel would become the mediator between the sinner and Heaven. How ridiculous! The Bible states, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5).

God warned that there would be those who would “wrest. the scriptures, unto their own destruction” (II Pet. 3:16).

In Galatians 3:1 Paul is amazed that some have been “bewitched” that they should not obey the truth, “before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” If Satan could bewitch people to refuse the truth in Paul’s day, he is certainly doing it also in our day.

Hear them on the radio and you can spot them even before their false doctrine seeps through. In most cases they have the same tone of voice, the same spirit, the same deadness, the same sarcasm, and out of all of the wonderful verses in the Bible they end up with the same few verses about water! No one else can pronounce the word “baptize” quite like a Church of Christ preacher.

Some Memphis Campbellites call their religious telecast “The Amazing Grace Program!” What a strange title for a people who believe in salvation by works instead of by grace. On a Church of Christ program the preacher was exhorting, “When we have been baptized into the Church of Christ we have experienced the new birth!” Then they sang “Amazing Grace!” Well, it has to be one or the other. Either we’re saved by the amazing grace of God in His Son, or we’re saved by immersion in the Church of Christ baptistry. It cannot be both. It has to be one or the other. Which will you take?

In pathetically trying to explain away salvation by grace through faith, one Church of Christ tract comments on Romans 10:9,10, vigorously trying to teach that these grand verses “do not have the complete plan of salvation-only part of it.” They affirm that such verses used by saved people to assure their salvation are not to be taken by themselves. They must have the addition of other verses compiled by the Church of Christ to complete the “steps to Christ and Heaven.” But it works both ways: while they criticize true Christians for interpreting Scrip­ture in the light of Scripture, they jump like grasshoppers from verse to verse and book to book attempting to make their water­bug theory work.

A Church of Christ preacher up North wrote me, “No where in

the Bible can you find the plan of salvation all together in one place. Therefore, we must use all of God’s word. Faith alone will not save.” I had written him to try to show him the way of salva­tion from the Gospel of John. It is quite a contradiction for the Camphellite to say, “Therefore, we must use all of God’s word,” when they restrict their teaching of main doctrines to just a few scattered portions of twisted Scripture.

One does not have to read far in Campbellite literature to dis­cover that they have never understood God’s great plan of redemption. They ignore the truth of “the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world,” and thus they cannot possibly un­derstand the Bible. God declares that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14).

This explains why some religious zealots can study the Bible for years and never understand it. It is sure to be dark if one closes his eyes! Once a person understands that God has devised a great plan of salvation which He is most anxious for men to hear, understand, and believe, and that He has written the entire Bible (not just the New Testament) in order to reveal Himself to sinful man and make possible His redemption, then the Bible becomes a new book.

From Genesis to Revelation this is what God is attempting to get across to man: that man is a sinner, that God loves him in spite of his sins, and that Jesus Christ will save him for all eter­nity if he will but receive God’s Son in a definite, deliberate ex­perience of saving faith.

“Eternal life is in his Son” God teaches constantly in Scrip­ture. We do not overcome God’s reluctance in order to be saved, but we rather take hold of His highest willingness to save us. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (I John 5:12).

The Campbellite teaches that salvation is in his church, but Jesus plainly declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

A lady in a Florida town told me recently that when she was a

girl of twelve she had been urged to “go up and confess” in a Church of Christ meeting. They took her immediately to the tank and baptized her. She went down a dry sinner and came up a wet one. She soon realized as a teenager that nothing had hap­pened to her. Later she was saved in a Baptist church, having then received Christ as her personal Saviour. She declares that her relatives feel sorry for her today as they are being “served communion by long-haired men” in a Church of Christ meeting each Sunday. But she says, “I am greatly relieved, and I feel sor­ry for them.”

You see, it is possible to be in a church and not be in Christ at all.

A Church of Christ tract sent to me from Ohio reads, “Many people do not realize that to be in Christ is to be in a church, and to be in the church is to be in Christ. Not to be a member of that church is to be out of Christ. All spiritual blessings are found in the church. Eternal life is a spiritual blessing. Do you want to live eternally? We must become a part of Christ’s church. The church is a necessary institution, and you must be a member of it to reach that heavenly reward.”

In the book of Galatians, Paul is writing to a church that had become legalistic and was attempting to add works to faith for salvation. In Galatians 3:1 Paul writes, “0 foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?”

The word “bewitched” may well describe the condition of those who today are depending upon works for salvation. Only Satan could so bewitch a people as to completely warp their un­derstanding of the Scriptures. Bewitched, biased, and bigoted are words that best describe those who advocate the teachings of the Church of Christ and other false cults that teach salvation by behavior and effort rather than by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ.

The Campbellite church has many errors but we do not have time to go into all of them. In fact, almost every verse they touch they twist, and conclude in error. Below are listed eight of their

biggest heresies and since most of these have to do with salva­tion, we will deal with these as we examine the truth about the Church of Christ.

As stated in the Introduction, the prime errors most often prated by the Campbellites are as follows:

1. SALVATION BY WORKS RATHER THAN BY THE GRACE OF GOD.

2. BAPTISMAL REGENERATION-SINS ACTUALLY REMIT­TED IN THE WATERS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST BAP­TISTRY.

3. THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS NOT ETERNAL; THAT A BORN-AGAIN SOUL CAN LOSE HIS SALVATION AFTER ALL.

4. THAT THEY HAVE A MONOPOLY ON SALVATION; THAT THEY ARE THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE CHURCH.

5. THAT ONE CANNOT KNOW IN THIS LIFE THAT HE IS SAVED.

6. THAT THEIR CHURCH HAS THE ONE AND ONLY BIBLE NAME.

7. THAT CHRISTIANS MUST TAKE THE LORD’S SUPPER EVERY SUNDAY TO BE SCRIPTURAL.

8. THAT TO WORSHIP WHERE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IS USED IS SINFUL AND DISOBEDIENT TO THE LORD.

Of course, they also are warped about the Holy Spirit, the Sec­ond coming of Christ, and many other glorious themes. They claim that God will not hear a sinner; that there is no divine call to the ministry. They deny heart-felt religion. They ignore the warning of Christ about sectarianism. They fail to be honest in contrasting the teachings of Paul and James. All this and more-much more! This would become a weighty volume, indeed, if we attempted to expound all of the errors of this cult.

Every false doctrine, of course, uses Scripture to project its falsehood. Every ism in existence will have a warped and twisted interpretation of the Scripture if they’re wrong about either salvation, the Holy Spirit, or prophecy.

In this book we will deal with the prime errors of the Church of Christ that relate largely to salvation. If they understood the Bi­ble plan of salvation, they would also be led easily to a correct understanding of the truth about the Holy Spirit and the second coming of the Lord. To be wrong about salvation, of course, is to miss everything!

Chapter Two

“Death in the Pot”

“Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”-I Cor. 6:6.

In II Kings, chapter 4, the Word of God gives us the account of some preacher boys who prepared a seething pot of soup for din­ner. However, they had gathered some poisonous wild gourds and had shred them into the pottage.

“And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, 0 thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.”-II Kings 4:40,41.

If there was ever death in the pot, we find it in the Church of Christ conglomeration. Let us hope that the reader will be will­ing to allow God’s pure meal to cure the poison before the end of this book.

Some friends in Florida who had been in the Church of Christ for years finally decided that it was not for them. They said the following things were true in the Church of Christ they had at­tended:

There was no warmth, or spirit, or love in the church.

The church was exalted above Christ.

The people were robbed of the blessings of the Old Testament.

Their minister failed to distinguish between churches and the true church-the body of Christ.

The church denied the working of the Holy Spirit and “the witness of the Spirit.”

Members were always “climbing a ladder of works.”

Few people carried their Bibles to church.

They never studied the Old Testament.

The minister never preaches on the blood of Christ.

The minister or members never knew what status they were in-saved or lost.

The preacher seldom, if ever, used the word “saved.”

Members never had any feeling or assurance about their salva­tion.

There were no tears in the Church of Christ.

One of the elders of the Church of Christ was an alcoholic.

The emphasis was constantly and simply, “Come unite with the church!”

The pastor was unable to give a satisfactory answer to the follow­ing questions: (1) Why did Christ die on the cross? (2) Where would you be if you died today?

Yes, indeed, there is death in the pot!

The Campbellite movement (the Church of Christ) started about 150 years ago and has become progressively and in­creasingly worse. There is nothing that stinks in the nostrils of a holy God any more than perverted religion. Paul wrote in Gala­tians, chapter 1, of “another gospel” and then declared, “Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:7,8).

This is strong language, but Paul said, “let him be accursed,” that is, let him be condemned or damned if he comes with any other gospel than the pure Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ.

It is important for the reader to realize that all “religion” is not of God. Some people receive “strong delusion to believe a lie” (II Thess. 2:11).

First Timothy 4 speaks of “doctrines of devils” and II Corinthians 11 tells us that Satan has ministers “whose end shall be according to their works.” Paul, in Titus, chapter 1, speaks of vain talkers and deceivers “whose mouths must be stopped!” In II Peter, chapter 2, the opening verses describe “false teachers who bring in damnable heresies, by whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”

God says, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not

according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20). God commands us in II Timothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Let us determine to look at these heresies-of-the-hoodwinked in the light of the Word of God. In order to rightly understand the Bible, it is important to keep in mind one honest rule of Bible study: Never interpret the plain teaching of Scripture in the light of an obscure or difficult portion, but always interpret the ob­scure or difficult portion in the light of the plain teaching of the Word of God. Almost every false ism in existence today has come about as a result of taking some obscure or difficult portion of the Bible and trying to make the entire Word of God fit into a little religious groove of man’s interpretation.

Take this subject of baptismal regeneration. Since the Bible very plainly teaches salvation by grace through faith and since there are just a few verses which by themselves, and out of con­text, would appear to teach that baptism is essential to salva­tion, it is important to study these few apparently difficult verses in the light of the plain teaching of the Bible instead of at­tempting to channel the entire Bible into the “water trough” of these few verses!

Obviously salvation cannot be by grace through faith and still be partly by baptism. Salvation cannot be both by grace and by works. So if I see a verse which appears to teach salvation by works or by baptism, then I need to study that verse in the light of the plain teaching of the Word of God.

One wonders what would have happened to a Church of Christ preacher if he had never known or read the five “water” verses which he thinks teach salvation by baptism and had just, without bias, studied the plain New Testament way of salvation.

For instance, in the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 31, He tells us, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.”

The Gospel of John, then, was written to reveal how men might know the Lord and have eternal life through His name.

Yet, baptism is never once mentioned in the Gospel of John in connection with the plan of salvation in all twenty-one chapters. Rather than teaching salvation by baptism, Paul declares in I Corinthians 1:17, “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Is it possible that Jesus never saved anybody because He never baptized anybody? (See John 4:2). Surely to put baptism into the plan of salvation is to shred the poison gourds of “death in the pot!”

And so on and on it goes in Church of Christ doctrine.

They quote Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,” but they cannot quote the next verse, “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

They constantly preach salvation by works and baptism,, and profess to believe in Jesus who, when He began His ministry, cried, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And Paul, who said, “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

They claim that New Testament doctrine is not to be learned from verses or events taking place before Pentecost, yet greedily snatch John 3:5 out of context to try to prove their “waterbug” theory of baptismal regeneration! This, indeed, is deceitful handling of the Word of God! They fail to realize that such verses as Galatians 3:27 and Romans 6:3 have nothing whatever to do with water baptism. As in I Corinthians 12:13, these verses refer to the baptism by the Spirit of believers into the body of Christ when they are saved. They totally deny eternal salvation and thus call God a liar (See I John 5:10). They call the church and the kingdom the same thing and thus completely distort the prophetic Scriptures.

Like Roman Catholics, they teach that salvation is in a church, and that one has to belong to their particular church or be eternally lost. They call Christ and the church the same, but if the church was Christ, how about the sins of its members?

They confuse water baptism with a birth, when God plainly declares it is a burial, and they completely misunderstand what

is achieved by baptism. They teach that the kingdom of Christ came at Pentecost and that Christ is reigning now in His kingdom! Thus do they fail to discern the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Heaven in scriptural teaching. They claim that the Old Testament has been abolished, but they never fail to use the Old Testament (twisted) to try to prove their points!

In attempEing to escape the truth of salvation by grace through faith the Campbellites will take a verse like John 1:12 and say that “to become” there means future tense. In other words, they will become a child of God after baptism. But in Mark 16:15 they declare that “shall be” is not future but present tense since it is phrased in connection with baptism! He will grab at any straw to try to prove his water theory.

They teach that water baptism is essential to salvation, but then you can lose your salvation, and when you come back to be “saved again” you do not have to be baptized the next time!

If water was necessary for salvation the first time, why is it not necessary for salvation the second time? Ephesians 4:5, of course, is referring to a spiritual baptism. The Church of Christ teaches that you can lose your Lord and your faith but not your baptism. How inconsistent!

The Campbellites live and thrive on trying to disprove what others believe and teach. Like Roman Catholics, they teach salvation by works, baptism and ritual; and they teach fear as the motive for service.

One wonders why so many people will join their churches and how they can build such beautiful buildings. The answer to this is the same answer that could be given for the growth of the Catholic or Mormon church or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their subjects are taught that they must work to be saved and go to Heaven, and that they will lose their souls if they do not work People tithe to the so-called Church of Christ for the same reason that people pay the priest to get their loved ones out of purgatory-fear!

And speaking of the priest, the Church of Christ zealot, like his Catholic brother, believes a third party is necessary for one to know the Lord and go to Heaven.

In a debate notebook, written by Campbellite A. C. Grider, I find these words about the human mediator they feel one must have between his soul and Christ. His argument is that God can­not save a believing man just by His own power-there must be a Church of Christ preacher in-between to get the man into Christ. Here are his points for debate:

a. The Bible does not say there will be no third party connected with salvation.

b. The Bible gives no account of one being converted without the third party. (Though the Bible abounds with such?)

c.       It may not be inferred that there will be no third party present.

d. The Bible mentions the conversion of thousands of people... and in each instance there were third parties present.

e.       It can be proven that, according to the plan of salvation, no one can obtain salvation unless in the presence of a third party.

Now how do you like that? Of course, the reason why the debating Campbellite has to work that into his argument is that he feels no one could possibly be saved or made ready for Heaven without baptism at the hands of a Campbellite preacher.

Not only does the Bible tell of numbers of people who were saved by Christ without any “third party,” but I have personally known quite a few who had found the Saviour in prison, in the hospital or simply at home in the quiet of their own bedroom. But anything to take the glory of “saving” away from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is Campbellism.

Oh, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (I John 4:1).

Chapter Three

Calling God a Liar

“…eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised. .  “-Titus 1:2.

“This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). The Church of Christ teaches that good works are necessary to salvation. The last paragraph of page 20, How to Understand the Bible, by A. G. Hobbs of the Church of Christ, reads:

those who are in the new and living way, having been born anew; who will live the new life in Christ daily; wear the new name; worship on the new day, content to sing only and not add mechanical music; and are faithful to observe the Lord’s supper, and the other items of worship-these have the hope and promise of eternal life in that new, heavenly city whose builder and maker is God.

This statement reveals that one would lose his soul if he even attended a church where musical instruments were used for the singing. Can you imagine anything so absurd?

I have just heard a Church of Christ preacher at the noon hour today who was insisting that we get to Heaven by our good works because of the writings of James who in chapter 2 declares that “faith without works is dead.”

Now while James 2:21 tells us, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” it is also true that in Romans 4:2-6 we read:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted untO him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not,

but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.”

Now which is correct? James tells us that Abraham is justified by works, while Paul tells us in Romans 4 that Abraham is justified by faith without works.

The simple answer, of course, is that both men are right. The two words “before God” in Romans 4:2 give us the key to the problem. Paul in Romans 4 is telling us how a man is justified before God-and that is by faith. On the other hand, James is telling us how a man is justified before his fellow man. So there are two justifications in the Bible: one before God, the other, before man. As you read the 2^nd chapter of James it is quite easy to determine that James is talking about our relationship to our fellow man. In verse 14 he asks, “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?” This 2^nd chapter of James has nothing to do with the subject of salvation and whether a man goes to Heaven or not.

The Bible surely teaches that salvation is by the marvelous grace of God. “And if by grace, then is it no more of works:

otherwise grace is no more grace” (Rom. 11:6). Think of the Devil’s lie about salvation by works in the light of such plain scriptural statements as these:

“Therefore by the deeds [works] of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. “-Rom. 3:20.

“Not of works, lest any man should boast. “-Eph. 2:9.

“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”-II Tim. 1:9.

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but ac­cording to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. “-Titus 3:5.

If salvation is not of works, then according to the Bible what is salvation by? Here are verses that give the simple answer:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”-Eph. 2:8.

Keep in mind that the word “grace” means unmerited or un­deserved favor.

·                according to his own purpose and grace. “-II Tim. 1:9.

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of)esus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. “-Gal. 2:16.

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. “-Gal. 3:10,11.

“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”-Gal. 3:26.

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. “-Rom. 3:22.

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ jesus. “-Rom. 3:24.

“To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. “-Rom. 3:26.

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. “-Rom. 3:28.

Now what is it that makes it possible for a man to be saved by the grace of God? Here are some of the verses that declare this great eternal truth:

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith

in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. “-Rom.

3:25.

“To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in

Jesus. “-Rom. 3:26.

“But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. “-Rom. 4:24,25.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. “-Rom. 5:8,9.

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. “-Gal. 3:13.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adop­tion of sons. “-Gal. 4:4,5.

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. “-Eph.

1:7.

“And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”-Eph. 2:16.

“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. “-Col. 1:20.

Now, of course, we could give hundreds of other verses which teach that salvation is by the grace of God through the atoning death of Christ on the cross for sinners, but these should be suf­ficient. ‘Tis done, the great transaction’s done. Hallelujah!

When Christ gave up His life on the cross, He cried, “It is finished.” God has done His part. Our part is to believe on Him and be saved!

A preacher friend of mine in Missouri agreed to a debate with a local Church of Christ pastor. During the contest the latter became increasingly indignant until finally his wrath was evi­dent. He shouted to the Baptist man of God, “I know where you’re going-to Hell!” My friend said calmly to the angered Campbellite, “It is strange that you know where I’m going and I know where you’re going, but you don’t know where you’re going. You’d have to admit you’re lost again right now, according to your doctrine!” The people walked out and the debate was over.

Chapter Four

“Please Drown Me in the Baptistry!”

“But when they believed. . they were baptized. “-Acts 8:12.

The pet heresy of the Church of Christ is the doctrine of bap­tismal regeneration. They take the entire scope of God’s glorious Word and try to bring it all under the shelter of about five drip­ping wet verses which (taken out of context) they declare teach that our sins are washed away in the baptistry of the Church of Christ!

Of the scores of books, tracts and pamphlets that I have read written by Campbellites, I doubt if a single one has failed to mention this false doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Here again they are like their brothers and sisters in the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches. I have heard them spend the entire time on their radio broadcast trying to prove that sins are remit­ted in the ordinance of baptism.

Instead of giving an invitation to be saved, a silver-tongued Church of Christ preacher on a radio broadcast recently con­cluded by solemnly urging his listeners to “find someone to im­merse you into Christ today.” He was the only Campbellite preacher I have ever heard who had very much to say in his mes­sage, then he ruined it all by giving his listeners false instructions about how to be saved!

“When we have been baptized into the Church of Christ, we’ve experienced the new birth,” was the brilliant conclusion of a Church of Christ message on TV; then they had the audacity to sing “Amazing Grace.” What a contradiction! That was about as spiritual as the two Mormons doing religious work in a Louisiana town who told a preacher friend, “When we get back to Salt Lake City, we’ll be saved!”

“Immersion is the converting act” ~he Harbinger, July 5, 1830, a Church of Christ publication). “Immersion and regenera­tion are two Bible names for the same act”). (See A History of the Baptists, John T. Christian, p.431.)

Some Campbel]ites contend that failure to be baptized is the one sin that God cannot pardon. (See Matt. 12:31 for the unpar­donable sin.) In other words, you can murder, lie, steal or com­mit adultery-but be baptized! The worst thing a man can do is to fail to let a Church of Christ preacher baptize him.

Baptism means. the new birth to a Campbellite: “To get into Christ one must hear the Gospel, believe it, repent, confess and be baptized into Christ. This puts one into Christ and he is thereby born again” (A. G. Hobbs, How to Understand the Bi­ble, p.19).

A Church of Christ preacher on the radio must have used the word “baptize” at least fifty times in a fifteen-minute message in trying to tell people how to get into Heaven! It seems that all of them believe this heresy, and it is no wonder that they cannot get a correct grasp of the glorious teaching of the grace of God. They are completely waterlogged!

They teach that when a man repents, believes and confesses he is still not saved. What does he lack? Baptism! Baptize him and he is saved; so what is that but baptismal regeneration? There are hundreds of verses which ~ainly teach that a man is saved without baptism. John 1:12 teaches that to believe on Christ is to receive Him, and that those who receive Him receive the power to become the sons of God, while verse 13 teaches that it is not by human administration or by anything that man can do.

John 3:15-18 very plainly proves that salvation is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice particularly verse 18, “He that believeth on him [literally trusteth on him] is not condemned:

but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Observe that these verses have nothing to do with baptism, nor do they include any reference to baptism. In John 6:29 Jesus very clearly declares, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” What could be plainer?

John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:

1830, a Church of Christ publication). “Immersion and regenera­tion are two Bible names for the same act”). (See A History of the Baptists, John T. Christian, p.431.)

John 5:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Here again the way to have everlasting life is to hear the Word and believe on Him! Thus one, “shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

John 6:37 declares: “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

John 6:40: “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” What could be plainer than that?

John 11:25: “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

John 8:24 states that Christ said, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” Notice again baptism has nothing to do with it! If a person believes on Christ, he has everlasting life. If he does not believe on Christ, he will die in his sins!

Acts 10:43: “Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remis­sion of sins.”

Acts 13:39: “And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

Acts 13:48: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”

Acts 16:30,31: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

Luke 7:50: “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”

Romans 3:28: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith.”

Romans 4:3: “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Galatians 2:16: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.”

Galatians 3:26: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 5:1: “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

First Corinthians 1:21: “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

First John 3:23: “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.”

Surely these verses teach that a man is saved without baptism. We could find many more, but these should suffice.

Read I Corinthians 1:14-18. Paul kept no record of those he baptized. He thanks God that he did not baptize more people! He said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Paul did say that he came to preach the Gospel. Paul contrasted baptism with the Gospel.

Take note of the account of the healing of the paralytic in Luke 5:18-20 and observe that Jesus, “when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Here is a man whose sins are forgiven without baptism.

One man of God poses this question-were Peter, James and John in Hell because they were not baptized after Pentecost?

The Campbellites teach that the church began at Pentecost, that it is their church, and that one must be in the so-called “Church of Christ” in order to be saved, and that he is baptized in order to get into this church. They disregard the verses before Pentecost and then later twist Mark 16:16 and John 3:5 to try to prove baptismal regeneration, and both of these verses were before Pentecost! They say the “water” in John 3:5 means bap­tism, yet they will have to agree that Jesus forgave sins in Luke 5:20 and Luke 8:48 without baptism. Both experiences are before Pentecost!

Jesus sayed another man before Pentecost when he told Zac­chaeus in Luke 19:9, “This day is salvation come to this house.” The same is true in Luke 23:43 when Jesus saved the thief on the cross and assured him that he would be with Christ that day in Paradise. The man soon died (without baptism) and went to be with the Lord! He had called on Christ, and Acts 2:21 declares that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

According to Church of Christ doctrines, all of the great heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 (the Westminster Abbey of the Bible) were lost because they were never baptized after Pentecost. This cult says that the greatest godly preachers who ever lived must be lost because they were not baptized in order to obtain remission of sins. In Acts 10:47 Cornelius was saved before he was baptized. The Bible teaches that only saved folk are fit candidates for bap­tism. (See Acts 13:39; 8:37; 16:31; John 3:36; I John 5:la.)

In Acts 8 the eunuch was saved (because he believed) before he was baptized (vs. 37). Here’s a strange thing. Church of Christ claim a man cannot obey God until he is baptized. Yet they ad­mit that to repent, believe and confess are acts of obedience a man must do before he is baptized. They say a man cannot believe fully until he is baptized. This contradicts their teaching but sometimes the occasion is demanding. (See Acts 13:19; Rom. 3:22; 4:11; John 3:36.) They say he hasn’t believed fully. Acts

8:37 flatly contradicts this, but it doesn’t bother Campbellites. Don’t confuse them with the facts!

Someone has suggested that if a man cannot fully believe until he is baptized, then the unbaptized man is an unbeliever. Thus they baptize unbelievers to make believers! Surely the New Testament never gives such power to the waters of baptism.

This doctrine of baptismal salvation originated with the Roman Catholic Church, not with the New Testament. Roman Catholics use the same verses to prop up their heresies. For in­stance, Father Connell’s The New Baltimore Catechism No.3, states exactly the same thing regarding baptism! They interpret John 3:5 exactly the same way the Church of Christ do. The Douay-Rheims Version footnotes on John 3:5 in the Catholic Bi­ ble are interpreted exactly the same as the Campbellites do. Listen to these words from R. A. Long, a godly man of yesterday:

Since only people baptized to remit sins are baptized properly, then Mormons, Campbellites and other cultists are the only ones who ~ver please God. John Wesley and othe? great saints were un­godly wretches, according to their doctrine! The Church of Christ says that a man cannot love God ‘til he is baptized (I John 4:7) and they teach that being born of God is baptism. Thus they bap­tize haters of God and claim to make them lovers of God. What power in their water!

They teach that man and water are the saviour instead of Christ. A man can repent, believe, confess, and live a perfect life, but is still lost unless he is baptized. Then baptism is what saves him, according to their doctrine. Two things are essential to baptism-water and somebody to do it. Then these two things are what saves a man’s soul. God does not do it. Christ does not. Grace does not. The cross does not. It is the waters of baptism. Imagine a man shipwrecked alone on an island who finds a New Testament and believes and trusts the Lord to save him, but he cannot go to Heaven because he does not have a Camphellite preacher there to baptize him. How sad!

The Church of Christ preacher sometimes says, “The souls that I save” meaning-he baptized them. Then Jesus never saved anybody because He never baptized anybody. (See John 4:2 and Luke 19:10.)

Suppose administrators were quite scarce and that a Campbel­lite preacher could charge $1,000 a head to baptize a man so he could go to Heaven. Otherwise, he would go to Hell. No Roman Catholic priest could beat that!

The Campbellite says that “complete obedience is necessary to salvation.” One in reality would have to be perfect, yet they say a man cannot be sinless or perfect in this life. So, you see the con­tradiction Qf it all. God says in Romans 14:12, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

A lady who had been saved out of the Church of Christ told me recently that when she was attempting to discover the truth she asked her Church of Christ preacher what would get her lost again if she could be saved and then lost. He said, “Falling into sin.” She said, “Then would I have to be baptized again?” He said, “No.”

Now it’s strange that she had to be baptized to be saved the first time, but she wouldn’t have to be baptized to be saved the second time. In other words, the lost man who fell from grace can be “saved again” without baptism. Thus they contradict themselves.

Evangelist Joe Boyd reminds us that they contradict their own teachings in saying that baptism saves and then when you’re baptized, they say that you didn’t quite make it, but you must keep on working until judgment day, and then, on judgment day, Jesus will tell you if you were good enough to make it or not. How grossly unscriptural!

Now perhaps you are thinking that if all of these verses that we have mentioned prove that a person is saved without baptism, what about the few verses the Church of Christ uses that they say make it necessary for a person to be baptized in order to be saved? Keep in mind now that we are to interpret the few ob­scure portions in the light of the plain teaching of the Word of God and never the other way around. Since G9d teaches throughout the entire Bible that salvation is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, and since God states again and again in such books as the Gospel of John that we are saved by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, then if we find a few verses that would appear (by themselves) to teach that salvation is by baptism, we must look at those verses carefully to find the answer since we know that God does not contradict Himself.

Now, for instance, Mark 16:16 is used by the Campbellite to try to prove that we are saved by baptism. It reads, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Now look at Mark 16:16 in the light of Acts 13:38,39 and you will discover that forgiveness of sins comes through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Also look at Mark 16:16 in the light of all the verses we quoted earlier which plainly declare that salvation is by believing on Jesus. You say, “But does it not say that ‘he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’?” Yes, it does, but it also says,”. . .he that believeth not shall be damned.” It does not say that a person will be damned if he is not baptized.

I can say if I get on a Greyhound bus and take my seat I will get to the next town. Now if I get on a Greyhound bus and stand up all the way, I will still get to the next town. However, I will be more comfortable and I certainly will be doing the right thing if I take my seat on the bus instead of trying to stand up all the way. I’ll get there whether I sit down or not.

You could take Mark 16:16 and say he that believeth and is baptized and goes to church and lives right will be saved, and you would be correct; but it is not doing all those things that gets one saved, since the Bible plainly teaches that we are saved by believing on Jesus. Jesus says, “He that believeth and is bap­tized” because it is true that if a person really does believe, he will obey God and be baptized. But he will be baptized not to get saved but because he is saved by believing. Not in order to get to Heaven but because he is going to Heaven.

Now take another verse that is frequently abused by these peo­ple. In fact, they can hardly preach a sermon without camping for awhile on Acts 2:38. Dr. Fred Brown says in some parts of Texas there are so many Campbellites that if you listen carefully to the bullfrogs in the pond at night you will hear some of them say, “Acts, Acts, Acts,” and you will hear other frogs replying, “2:38, 2:38, 2:38.” Try it!

Now let us look at the context on Acts 2:38. In verse 21 of chapter 2 Peter has already told them how to be saved. In verse 37 they cried, “What must we do?” They did not ask, “What must we do to be saved?” That’s answered clearly in Acts 16:31! Having heard and believed the Word of God they wanted to know what they were to do next, and Peter told them to, “Repent and be baptized.”

Now the difficulty and the friction over Acts 2:38 comes because of the little word “for.” Peter says, “Repent and be bap­tized every one of you for the remission of sins.” What does the word “for” mean? The word “for” is the Greek word eis which means “because of.” As in Matthew 12:41 they repented els, or Matthew 3:11 “water eis repentance.” Or Acts 2:25, “David speaketh eis him.” In these cases the word eis has to mean “concerning” or “because of.”

A man is put in jail for a crime, not “in order to” commit the crime, as anyone could readily see. We say that a man shouts for joy and we do not mean that he shouts in order to get joy, but he shouts because he already has joy. Dr. John R. Rice states in a letter to a Church of Christ preacher:

You make much of Acts 2:38, “baptized. . .for the remission of sins” but, alas, here you do not go to the Scripture so much as to many so-called authorities. But you are not accurately quoting these authorities. Somebody has victimized you and so you are quoting what other people said long ago.

For example, I knew Dr. Trantham when I was a student in Baylor University. Dr. Dana was my professor of Greek in Southwestern Seminary. Later, I knew him when he taught in Northern Baptist Seminary. Neither Dr. Trantham nor Dr. Dana believed that Acts 2:38 meant that one is baptized in order to be saved.

In fact, no Greek teacher in the world thinks that, because if it, meant, “in order to” it would have used the Greek word hina in­stead of the little Greek preposition els. So all good Greek scholars know.

Peter tells us in his epistle that baptism was a “figure” and was the answer of a good conscience toward God. Baptism, then, is the outward expression of an inward salvation. Baptism fol­lows salvation. Baptism is essential to obedience but not to salvation. It is true that if a person is truly saved he will want to be baptized. But it is not the baptism that saves him, according to the Word of God.

Dr. Bruce Cummons has given an excellent illustration in reference to the word “for” in Acts 2:38:

Consider another passage of Scripture, where the same word “for” is used in a similar way. Read carefully Luke 5:12-15. Christ healed a leper of his dread disease. Since this was before Calvary, the healed man was still under the law, and Christ was faithful in fulfilling the law. Jesus said to the man, therefore, “Go, and show thyself to the priest and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them” (vs. 14). Notice the language carefully: “Offer for thy cleansing.” Did Christ heal, or did the offering heal? Why, you may say that’s ridiculous! Christ healed! The offering was only a testimony to the truth that had taken place in the life of the man healed! You are right!

Furthermore, the same language is employed and the same pur­pose is set forth in Acts 2:38. “Repent,” as I have sho’wn to mean, biblically, “repent unto salvation” and then “be baptized for the remission of sins,” or as a testimony that your sins have been remitted.

If the offering did not cleanse or was only a testimony of, “for thy cleansing,” then by the same Bible truth, baptism does not save but is a testimony of the truth that your sins have been remitted; or to be baptized “for the remission of sins,” or actually as a testimony that your sins have been remitted.

Christ alone is the Saviour and not the baptistry, nor the water in it! Thus, the purpose of baptism is to show forth the salvation that has already taken place in the heart and life of the believer. If the blood of Christ was shed for the remission of sins, then bap­tism cannot bring about, or be the means of remitting sins. You cannot have two ways of salvation. If you want to set this verse (Acts 2:38) against the hundreds of passages in the Bible that declare salvation to be by faith and make Acts 2:38 say what Peter never intended it to say, then that is up to you.

Why, Then, Is a Person to Be Baptized or Immersed in Water?

(1)     Because it is commanded that a saved person be baptized (Acts 10:48).

(2)     Because Jesus was baptized (and He says, “Follow me”).

(3)     Because it is becoming. “Thus it becometh us to fuffil all righteousness.

(4)     Because it is sacred-it describes and honors the Trinity (“bap­tized in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”).

(5)     Because it is pleasing to God (“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”).

(6)     Because it pictures the Gospel. When a person is immersed upon his profession of faith he is picturing again the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, his Saviour.

(7)     Because it is a confession of faith. “When they believed, they were baptized.”

(8)     It is part of the Great Commission. We are taught not only to preach or teach the Gospel but to baptize the converts after they are saved (Matt. 28).

(9)     Because it is a testimony to the world that one has received Christ and is thus identified with Him.

So in Acts, chapter 2, the people who cried out to Peter had heard the Word and believed it, having been taught in verse 21 that if they would call on the name of the Lord they would be saved. As they were pricked in their hearts in verse 37, they cried unto Peter saying, “What shall we do?” (not, “What must we do to be saved?”). So Peter told them to repent, that is, to thoroughly change their mind about sin and turn from sin and to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism because they had been saved, and as an evidence of the fact that their sins had been remitted. Verse 41 in the chapter tells us that they that gladly received His Word were baptized. Having been baptized, they continued to give further evidence of their salvation by their fel­lowship, breaking of bread, prayers, and their services of praise in the Temple.

Incidentally, as one of the old divines has suggested, “In John 3:5 the Campbellite insists that baptism is a birth and in Romans 6:4 it is a burial. I do not bury a man to kill him, but because he is already dead. So baptism is not in order to, but because of.”

In I Peter 3, Peter gives a figure of salvation and the Campbel­lite jumps on this in an attempt to try to prove his water theory again. Notice the text in I Peter 3:18. Peter assures us that “Christ has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” This is the means of our salvation-the death of Christ on the cross in the sinner’s stead. Then he says in verses 19 and 20, “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” The next verse reads, “The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

In verse 19 he reminds us that Jesus proclaimed to the bound spirits in prison the wonderful deliverance that had been effected by His death on the cross, mentioned in verse 18. Then in verse 20, he describes the time “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.”

Now, of course, it was the ark that saved those people in

Noah’s day. The eight souls in the ark were saved before the water came. If they had not been in the ark, they would have been eight souls lost in water. You must be safe in the ark (that is, in Christ) before baptism becomes a figure. All the other souls were lost in water because they were not in the ark. The eight saved were in the ark, not in the water, so the water did not have anything to do with their salvation! In the next verse (21) Peter plainly declares that this is a “figure” of salvation and that bap­tism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God.

Dr. Keith L. Brooks explains:

Water saved Noah, not of itself, but by sustaining the ark which had been built in FAITH resting on GOD’S WORD. It was to him a sign of the coming regeneration of the earth. So water baptism saves not of itself, nor of the mere material water, but the spiritual thing conjoined with it, faith in Christ, of which it is the sign or figure, as Peter explains here.

In an excellent tract put out by the Utah Christian Mission to help Mormons who are deceived on the same verses, this ex­planation is given:

This whole portion of Scripture from verse 18 through 22-is telling about the gospel of Christ being preached through Noah by the Spirit in the days in which Noah lived. In other words, the people of Noah’s time were without excuse because the Spirit through Noah preached Christ to them. They had many oppor­tunities to accept Christ, but all but eight souls rejected Noah’s preaching. What saved Noah and the other seven people? Water or the ark? If you answer right, you must say the ark. The water drowned those who did not go into the ark. Those souls that were saved in the ark were brought safely through the water and es­caped the flood. Corresponding to that figure baptism now saves us-not the washing off of material defilement, but the craving of a good conscience after God-through the resurrection (Weymouth).

In other words, we are saved by that of which baptism speaks-the death, burial and resurrection of Christ! Remember, the eight souls that were saved were saved in the ark, not in the water! The ark was a type of Christ.

Still another verse that troubles some people and that is fre­quently used by the Church of Christ is a statement in Acts 22:16. This is a part of the testimony of Paul when he was retell­ing his experience of conversion and the things that followed it. It reads, “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” Now, on the surface, if this verse were all by itself, and if we did not have the hundreds of verses that teach salvation by grace through faith, one might wonder if it were possible that baptism was a part of a man’s salvation and cleansing. However, you need to read the entire 22^nd chapter to get the story, and then we need to read, in order to be honest, the conversion of Paul in the book of Acts.

Please remember that Paul was born again on the road to Damascus, not three days later when he was baptized (See I Cor. 15:8 and Acts 9:17).

In a taped message on “Bible Call,” a Church of Christ telephone “ministry,” I just heard an eloquent speaker say, in referring to the conversion of Paul, “A great change took place on the Damascus Road. Paul was chosen to be an apostle and called to be a witness. Paul had surrendered completely!”

Now here is a strange thing that the Campbellite thinks the great change and Paul’s complete surrender to God took place on the Damascus Road, when their literature tells us that Paul was not saved until later when he was baptized!

Paul prayed and was heard for three days before his baptism (Acts 9:8~15). He was a “chosen vessel,” selected by God, before he was baptized (Acts 9:15). He was called “Brother Saul” (a brother in the Lord) before his baptism (Acts 9:17). And he had received the Holy Ghost before his baptism in water. No one has the Holy Ghost except a saved person (Rom. 8:9).

Now what did Paul mean in Acts 22:16 when, in telling his conversion experience, he quoted Ananias as saying, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins”?

Before jumping to conclusions, remember that the Bible very plainly teaches that our sins are washed away in the blood of Christ (See I John 1:7, Rev. 1:5). Sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ, not by water, as any honest Bible reader knows.

E. M. Borden admits in his Campbellite work on Baptist Doctrine Upset, page 46, “Wash away thy sins is figurative.” So, according to Campbellites themselves, Paul’s baptism only figuratively washed away his sins. Alexander Campbell, founder of the Church of Christ sect, admitted the same in his Christian System.

Incidentally, if the statement “wash away thy sins” is to be taken literally rather than as a figure, then a man can wash away his own sins, for that is what the verse commands! Under­standing a verse like this is what God is talking about when He says, “. . rightly dividing the word of truth.”

“When Jesus said, ‘The good seed are the children of the kingdom,’ He did not mean it literally; He meant the good seed represented the children of the kingdom,” states John R. Gilpin. He continues:

When our Lord took the bread and the fruit of the vine at the time He instituted the Lord’s Supper, He said, ‘This is my body, and this is my blood.’ He didn’t mean it was His literal body and blood. He didn’t mean that the individuals who take the Lord’s Supper eat the literal flesh and blood of our Lord. He meant the wine and the bread represented His body and His flesh.

Then Brother Gilpin continues:

My brother, when Paul was told ‘Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins,’ it was a figurative expression which pictured that which actually took place in the heart. Whenever you see a person baptized, it says to the world that he has died to sin and we are raising him to walk in newness of life. When you see that in­dividual baptized, you get the outward picture of what has taken place inwardly, for the heart has been washed by the blood, and the washing of the water on the body pictures what has taken place in the heart.

It would seem unduly strange to me that if water were neces­sary and essential to salvation, that Paul never told anyone to be saved in that fashion. When Ananias said, “Come, arise, and be baptized,” it was a figure of speech saying to the world that Paul had been saved. If Ananias meant otherwise, and if he meant water was to literally wash his sins away, isn’t it strange that when Paul became a preacher, he never told anybody to be bap­tized to wash away their sins? Rather, he said, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8,9).

To teach that Acts 22:16 declares the actual and literal removal of sin by the washing of baptism would mean to deny a host of plain statements in the Bible that our sins are washed away by faith in the blood of Christ!

Before we leave the “water department,” let me say also that since the Church of Christ distorts and mutilates almost every verse of Scripture they touch, it is not surprising that they would misinterpret John 3:5. Of course, in the entire Gospel of John, the Lord is stating, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31).

Again and again, as we have already quoted, God declares in the Gospel of John that salvation is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what about John 3:5 where Jesus said, “Ex­cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”? Keep in mind that the entire Gospel of John does not mention baptism once in connection with the plan of salvation. Dr. Keith L. Brooks states in commenting on this:

John 3:5 is not taken by Bible scholars to be a reference to water baptism. A very literal rendering of the verse would be, “Born of water and wind.” Wind is taken to be typical of the Spirit and is so carried into the text. Water is frequently used as a type of the Word (John 5:3; Eph. 5:26; Prov. 25:25). The Word, with the Spirit, are recognized as the agents of salvation (See James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:22,23). Keep in mind that Jesus said, “Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). In Ephesians 5, verse 26, we are told, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it ~the church] with the washing of water by the word.” So it is the Word of God by which men are born again. Only in this sense is water used.

Speaking on baptismal regeneration in the book, Heresies Ex­posed, J. H. Todd states:

There is not a single instance of the baptism of a child (baby) in the New Testament and in every instance of baptism mentioned in the Acts those who were baptized were said to have believed. The order throughout that book is hearing the word, believing it, and being baptized. The believer’s identification with Christ in baptism places him on resurrection ground as having passed out from under sin and death through the waters that speak of death and burial.

The Church of Christ, in attempting to explain how the thief on the cross could have been saved without baptism, states that this was before Jesus died, therefore it was under a different covenant. However, the thief actually died after Jesus did; thus, according to their teaching, he would have been under the new covenant. They try to put the thief on the cross on the other side of Calvary; but then, in contradiction, they take John 3:5 (also on the other side of Calvary), and try to apply it as meaning that baptism is essential for us today!

What Jesus is really teaching in John 3:5,6 is that the only way into the true spiritual body of Christ is by a spiritual birth. Jesus went on to explain to Nicodemus the way of salvation without once mentioning baptism.

Did the snakebite victims do anything to be delivered from the fiery serpents? No. Jesus declares, “As Moses lifted up the ser­pent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). As the children of Israel simply looked in faith to the serpent of brass, so we simply look in faith to the Saviour lifted up on the cross for our sins.

“The end of your faith” is the salvation of your soul (I Pet. 1:9). Our hearts are purified by faith (See Acts 15:9).

In I Corinthians 10:2, God refers to an Old Testament type of baptism, declaring, “And were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Now when were these children of Israel led through the sea as a type of baptism? It was after they had been saved by the blood of the Passover lamb in Egypt. They were saved by the blood, then they passed through the typical waters of baptism!

Scripture compares with Scripture, and God never contradicts Himself!

No Understanding of the Spiritual

The other verses that Campbellites primarily use to attempt to teach baptismal regeneration are verses that refer not to water baptism at all but to the baptism of the believer by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. For instance, Galatians 3:26 plain­ly tells us that we are “the children of God by faith” in Jesus Christ. Then in verse 27 Paul goes on to say that, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

This, of course, is what he is talking about in I Corinthians 12:13 where he declares, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” Now it is quite evident here to anyone who can read that it is the Holy Spirit who does the baptizing in this case. For a Campbel­lite to attempt to call their water baptism the Holy Spirit’s bap­tism is actually a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit’s work! The “one baptism” mentioned in Ephesians 4:5 is not water baptism at all but the same baptism of the Spirit mentioned by Paul in I Corinthians 12:13.

The Church of Christ preacher has been deluded into preaching that he can actually baptize one into Christ. The ques­tion may be asked: “If not by human instrumentality, how does one get into Christ?” The answer is plainly given in Ephesians 1:4. We were “chosen in him before the foundation of the world.”

“To the praise of the glory of his grace. . he hath made us accepted in the beloved. “-E ph. 1:6.

“Through his blood” we have “the forgiveness of sins.”-Eph. 1:7.

after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. “-Eph. 1:13.

.according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead. “

•              E ph.1:19,20.

Thus, having been chosen in Him by God, accepted in the Beloved, forgiven through His blood, sealed by His Spirit, and experiencing the mighty power of God through the resurrection, the believer is baptized by the Spirit into the church “Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23). To confuse this glorious work of God with the human administration of water baptism is warped interpretation beyond human com­prehension!

It is evident from Scripture that there are a number of dif­ferent baptisms mentioned in the Bible. Some of these include:

(1)               Israel’s baptism unto Moses (I Cor. 10:4). Actually they did not even get wet in that particular baptism because they went through the Red Sea on dry ground.

(2)   John’s baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3).

(3)               Christ’s baptism in water (Matt. 3:13-15). This baptism was unique in that Christ was not a sinner and yet said that this was in order to fulfil all righteousness. He was identifying with the human race whom He came to save.

(4)   Christ’s baptism in death (Luke 12:50; Mark 10:38,39).

(5)   The baptism of the infant church for power, prophesied in Acts 1:5.

(6)               The Holy Spirit baptism of fire (Matt. 3:11). This is a bap­tism of judgment when the chaff shall be burned with un­quenchable fire (yet future).

(7)               The water baptism by immersion of true believers in Christ, thus identifying with Him and making public their profession of faith in the finished work of Christ (Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:41; 8:12; 8:38).

(8)               The spiritual baptism of every believer by the Holy Spirit into Christ which takes place when a sinner turns from sin to Christ and is born again (I Cor. 13:12; Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:12). Of course, the water baptism of a believer signifies and pictures this baptism of the believer into Christ.

On an invitation card from a Church of Christ in Panama City, Florida, I read these words under the heading of “Eternal Salvation”:  “Eternal salvation is for the member of Christ’s church [baptized Campbellitesl who maintain good works and remain faithful unto death (II Pet. 1:5-11; Rev. 2:10).”

Evangelist Joe Boyd, in a conversation with a Church of Christ worker, was told that the only way he could have his sins washed away would be to be baptized. Then he was also told by the Campbellite that after baptism he would have to work in order to make it into Heaven, and that he could not be sure of Heaven un­til the end of his life. “In other words,” commented Brother Boyd, “you’re telling me that the only way that I could be sure of getting to Heaven would be for you to baptize me and then drown me in the baptistry! Is that right?” The Campbellite had no reply.

The reason for this, of course, is that there is no reply. if salva­tion is accomplished by being baptized, and if even after bap­tism one cannot be sure that he is saved until he has worked enough and held out faithful to the end, then the only safe way for the Church of Christ member to make sure he would “get in” would be to be held under water until he could no longer breathe.

If Church of Christ doctrine be true, PLEASE DROWN ME IN THE BAPTISTRY!!!!!

Chapter Five

Eternal Life, or Just on Probation?

· and ‘hey shall never perish. . . “-John 10:28.

Recently, while in meetings in North Alabama, I found that every time I preached a message on the radio a local Church of Christ preacher would come along the next day and attempt to explain away every verse of Scripture I used, taking great delight (as Cambellites usually do) in this. I had been preaching on such subjects as “Eternal Life” and “How to Become a Child of God.” I decided, in view of this, that rather than be drawn into a debate with this fellow who was mentioning baptism some twenty-five to fifty times in every fifteen minutes of his messages, I would just simply bring such simple messages on general themes that he would have nothing to strike back at. In other words, I deter­mined not to say anything that would arouse the Campbellite.

Then I discovered something: it is impossible for a saved preacher to preach a scriptural radio message that a Church of Christ person will not disagree with. Anything said that is scrip­turally true will be contradicted by most Church of Christ preachers!

One of the glorious doctrines most often taught in the Bible, and most hated by a Campbellite, is the eternal security of the believer in Christ!

HE CANNOT KNOW HE HAS ETERNAL LIFE

Because the Church of Christ zealot hates the truth of eternal security so much, he can never know that he himself has eternal life. He hopes to be “finally saved in Heaven,” but he can never sing, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, 0, what a foretaste of glory divine.” He can never sing, “I know whom I have believed,” or “I am bound for the Promised Land.” He can never sing, “In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore,” or “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” It is so sad to think that great numbers of religious people can spend their lives arguing religion and debating with others while they themselves never know for sure that they have anything!

Yet the Scripture declares plainly in John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” The word “hath” there is present possession. It means I have it now by believing on the Son. The same thing can be said of John 5:24, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life” and then God makes the emphasis all the stronger by saying, “shall not come into con­demnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Notice the words “shall not. “ In other words, under no circumstances will the person who has everlasting life ever come into condemnation again. He has already passed from death unto life! Hallelujah!

In John 6:37 Jesus plainly declares, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Now, does God mean what He says, or does He not mean what He says? Iti John 6:47 Jesus announces, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”

In Galatians 3:26 God says, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Notice the word “are.” Saved people are now the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:15-17 states:

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with out spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”

How could anything be plainer than that?

In II Corinthians 5:1 Paul declares, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Paul isn’t guessing about it; he says “we know”!

In I John 2:25 John writes, “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.”

Can a child of God know for sure, then, that he has everlasting life? Well, in Titus 1:2 God speaks of “eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Notice that God cannot lie and He has promised eternal life to those who believe. In II Timothy 1:12 Paul writes: “. . for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

And, finally, in I John 5:13, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” How wonderful!

It is quite evident, then, that the child of God can know that he has eternal life, and has it now.

But for some reason most Church of Christ people seem to take great delight in preaching and proudly proclaiming that the saved man is not secure, and that one who has believed on Christ does not have everlasting life.

When one understands the great plan of God to save redeemed sinners by grace through faith, and to grant unto them the gift of everlasting life as a present possession, and that those who thus have eternal life have become forever the sons of God, it makes the whole Bible understandable. There is no way for a man to rightly interpret Scripture who does not have a grasp of God’s great plan for the eternal salvation of true believers. As in the case of water baptism, there may be a few scattered verses which would appear to teach otherwise, but when we look at the ob­scure or seemingly contradictory verses in the light of the full scope of Scripture, then everything becomes clear.

In one small book dealing with the Campbellite heresy, of course, it is impossible to give a complete study of the eternal security of the believer. However, to the honest reader, even a few positive statements from God Himself should clinch the matter.

For instance, in John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” and this is in contrast to those who believe not the Son, “and shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Plainly, those who believe on (trust on, depend on) Christ have everlasting life. The word “bath” is present possession-which means we have it now.

This is also true in John 5:24. The one who hears God’s Word and believes on Him “bath everlasting life.” And then God gives double emphasis to the truth by declaring that he shall not come into condemnation; but is passed (already) from death unto life.

Look at John 10:27, 28: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life [God does not say temporary life; He does not say I put them on proba­tion to see if they hold out!]; and they shall never perish [that means under no circumstances], neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” Then he reaches up and takes hold of the Father’s hand and says in verse 29, “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”

In I Corinthians 3 when God discusses salvation and rewards, He assures us that if a saved man sees his works burned, he shall suffer loss, “but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (vs.

15).

Hebrews 7:25 assures us that “he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

Hebrews 10:14 reveals that “By one offering he bath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

In I Peter 1:4 we are told that our inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, “fadeth not away” and that it is “reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” How plain can a thing be! Peter here is writing to saved people who have through faith in Christ an inheritance that will fade not away and it is reserved in Heaven for them. Then in verse 5 he declares that they are kept by the power of God and are ready to be revealed in the last time.

Second Peter 1:4 tells us that these people who have obtained like precious faith are given exceeding great and precious promises (and these are God’s promises!). And that they are par-takers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. People who thus have been born again and have been made the children of God actually have the divine nature. They are a part of God and He a part of them. This is not idle talk; this is glorious fact!

But, one exclaims, what about the verses that Church of Christ and such people use which seem to teach that one can lose his salvation? Here, almost without exception, the difficulty arises because they have failed to distinguish between relationship with God and fellowship with God. Relationship with God is settled when one receives Christ and is born again. Fellowship with God can be broken and must be kept up along the way. Relationship with God is established when one is saved. Fellowship with God is a day-by-day experience of walking with God.

Another reason why the cults do not understand the eternal salvation of God is that they fail to distinguish between backsliding and apostasy. They would say that I John 2:19 describes a backslider who went back on God. But God explains in the latter part of the verse by saying”. . they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” In other words, they were not really a part of the family of God to start with!

Many people profess what they do not possess. As Dwight L. Moody used to put it, “Many are whitewashed, but they have never been washed white in the blood of Christ.” Certainly this would be true of someone who was depending upon his baptism or works for salvation. He had never really been born again to start with. It would be quite easy for him to turn back to sin and the world because he never had anything to begin with!

But, as we have discovered in the foregoing verses, the saved person does have everlasting life and will not come into condem­nation but is kept by the power of God unto that day. As the psalmist puts it, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand” (Ps. 37:24). The saints are “preserved for ever” (Ps. 37:28).

But you say, What if someone breaks God’s statutes and does not keep His commandments? Well, God makes that very state­ment in verse 31 of Psalm 89, and goes on to say in verse 32, “Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their ini­quity with stripes.” In other words, God will use a chastening rod on any of His children who deliberately sin and refuse to obey Him.

But now look at verses 33 and 34 of Psalm 89: “Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips!” So the eternal security of the believer in Christ is an established fact if one believes and rightly understands the Bible.

Much of the difficulty with the Campbellites and other cultists is that they never really see the source of salvation. They still are thinking about what they have done or what they can do rather than what God has done. Salvation is of the Lord! It is His free gift “by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8). It is “not by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:5). It is “by faith without the deeds of the law” (Rom. 3:28). The gift of God “is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

Now if you get it today, and lose it tomorrow, it wasn’t everlasting when you got it. What people need to realize is that we are not getting “it”-we are getting Him! We get Him when we are saved. “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life” (I John 2:25).

God does not put us on probation. He makes us to become “sons of God” (John 1:12). “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (I John 5:11).

When we are saved we are “born of God”-not of man (John

1:13).

Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” He did not say, “If you do not want to be lost again and go to Hell, keep my commandments.” Read your Bible! As dne of the old saints said, “The Campbellite doctrine of being lost again would make fear the only motive for service and works.”

Now having looked at some of the glorious promises which prove that a saved person has everlasting life, one might wonder, Does the Church of Christ really believe that a person is saved only on probation (which is not to be saved at all), and that he must work to stay saved or he will still be lost in the end even if he has been, as they put it, “baptized into the Church of Christ”?

In the book, What Is the Church of Christ? published in Nashville, Tennessee, salvation is to come by certain steps, which include, “hear the Gospel, believe, repent, confess, be baptized, and live a Christian life.” Now if living a Christian life is one of the steps to salvation, then of course one loses his salva­tion if he is not living it. But who decides when the so-called con­vert stops living it? What does it take for him to be lost again? At what point does he cease working so much that he loses his soul? No one, of course, can answer this question, because there is no answer.

Again and again the Campbellites condition eternal life to those who do certain things-keep the ordinances, sing without musical instruments, “try to do right in every thought, word and deed,” as they so frequently say.

Now, of course, one does not find fault with those who would try to do right in every thought, word and deed-but this is not what obtains salvation, nor retains salvation, for that matter!

In a book by Cambellite A. G. Hobbs, What Difference Does It Make? a booklet that constantly spues forth error, he writes:

To live up to the Bible one must worship as taught in the Bible. The New Testament Church met on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7). No church is living up to the Bible that does not do likewise. Furthermore, the church of the New Testa­ment did not use mechanical music in worship, but vocal music-singing.

Of course, Hobbs cannot prove that the New Testament church did not have musical instruments because the Bible doesn’t specifically say either way; but the point is that he is ac­tually teaching that a person cannot remain saved unless he goes to a Campbellite church, takes the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, and worships in a congregation that does not use an organ or a piano. How ridiculous can you get?

One thing for sure, conditional salvation is not eternal salva­tion. In the book, The Bible Is Right, written by Campbellite Hugh W. Davis, there is a chapter that begins, “What Must a Christian Do to Remain Saved?” and he proceeds to say, “As the Bible teaches that the Christian can be lost, it likewise tells him how to remain saved.” Sad, indeed, the ignorance of many religious zealots.

In a book by Campbellite James M. Tolle on Falling From Grace, he says on page 29, “But having Christ is conditional; thus eternal life is conditional.” In other words, one does not have salvation one simply is on probation. After that statement the man continues in an attempt to tear down every glorious Bi­ble promise of eternal life that he can find.

In another book by A. G. Hobbs, Can a Child of God Be Lost Eternally? he shows on every page that he does not understand the distinction between relationship with God and fellowship with God. It is a graphic case of the blind leading the blind.

In a tract by Eugene Smith, a Church of Christ writer says, “To get to Heaven one must be faithful till death (he quotes Rev. 2:101. Therefore we must continue rooted and grounded and growing in the faith, being faithful till death.” Of course, what that verse actually promises is a crown of reward to those who are faithful and it certainly does not condition eternal life upon one being faithful unto death. The truth of the matter is, if a person is genuinely saved, he will be faithful unto death, not by the perseverance of the saints but by the power of the Saviour and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Almost any book or tract one picks up that is written by Church of Christ writers attempts to destroy the glorious Bible doctrine of the eternal security of the believer in Christ. Per­sonally, I would hate to think that I was spending my life in and out, up and down, on probation. How wonderful to know that through Christ, one has eternal life!

Of course, one of the most absurd contradictions of the Campbellite is that he teaches that baptism is once for all and that salvation is by baptism. A Campbellite convert can lose his salvation, but he keeps his baptism. In other words, he has to be baptized to be saved, but after he fails to work enough and loses his salvation, he does not have to be baptized to be saved the second time! Strange that a man must be saved by water once, but he cannot be saved by water twice!

They never explain what gets a person lost again. They never explain how much or how many sins a person commits to lose his salvation. They cannot tell how he can cease to believe and not cease to be baptized. They do not state in any satisfactory man­ner why he does not have to be baptized again to be saved if he had to be baptized the first time to be saved. And if he does not, you can behold the inconsistency of the entire theory!

Chapter Six

A. D. 33, or 1827-Which?

”Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”-I Tim. 4:2.

               The deluded members of the so-called Church of Christ are taught to believe that their church originated on the day of Pentecost and that their doctrine was embraced by the disciples and has been believed by true Christians ever since. Nothing could be further from the truth!

I have read The Life of Alexander Campbell and I have read numerous books written by the followers of Campbell and by the critics of Campbell. History reveals accurately where the Church of Christ began. To believe what they teach would be to conclude that everybody went to Hell before 1827.

               They ignore and despise the historical teaching as to their origin. The Church of Christ cult began in 1827 under Alexander Campbell. They constantly affirm that their church was started by Christ Himself in A. D. 33. They also teach that the church and the kingdom are the same, and they are wrong on both counts. They say, “In no other church but his, can salvation be assured.” And then they proceed to try to trap folks into joining the Church of Christ by classing their church with the kingdom as if it were the same thing.

These must be among the “certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and deny­ing the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). “Many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of,’ (U Pet. 2:2).

So the fact that a religious group has a big following does not mean that they are right at all. On the matter of the church, their main error stems from an inability or an unwillingness to distinguish between local churches and the church which is His body. They claim that their sect (or church, as they call it) is His body-the actual body of Christ! In other words, that they (the Campbellites) actually constitute “the church which is his body” spoken of in Ephesians 1:22, 23 and Colossians 1:18, 24. This could hardly be the case for many reasons, but quite ob­viously since they deny Christ and His Word in so many ways.

They actually blaspheme the Holy Spirit by calling His bap­tism (I Cor. 12:13) their baptism! Since they do not know the dif­ference between churches and the church, they are easily deceived as to the distinction between the baptism by the Spirit and water baptism. To confound the word “baptism” as always referring to water is to pervert the Scripture and subtract from the Word of God, and to refer to the church as always a local as­sembly is to do the same (See again Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22,23; Eph. 3:10). Error about the church can lead to error about many other things.

In a tract by W. A. Bradfield of Henderson, Tennessee, on The New Testament Church, the author states about the church, “It is the kingdom of God and Christ.” In the same tract he er­roneously calls the wilderness through which the Israelites wandered the church, and Canaan a type of Heaven. He declares that forgiveness of sins, salvation, redemption, the grace of God, and all spiritual blessings are in the church! What Roman Catholic beckoning people to the folds of Romanism could state his position any clearer?

In a book by James Tolle of the Church of Christ, on page 22 he states, “There can be no entrance into the church, the state of salvation, without true repentance.” Here he equates the church and salvation as one and the same.

In a book called Neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jew by Bax­ter and Ellis, these Campbellites state, “Using the New Testa­ment as our blueprint, we have re-established in the 20^th century Christ’s church.”

This is strange since the church they call the Church of Christ bears very little resemblance to the doctrine of the New Testa­ment, and blatantly contradicts the teachings of Jesus and Paul about salvation by grace through faith.

This booklet by Baxter and Ellis concludes with a statement that reads, “Then why not be just a Christian not bound by human tradition, not enslaved by human ecclesiasticism, not tied to any sect or party?” Yet, where on earth could one find a more cynical and egotistical sect or party than the modern so-called “Church of Christ”?

The Campbellite does not see the difference between the organism and the organization. He does not discern the Lord’s body. Referring to Colossians 3:15, “Called in one body” a Church of Christ writer, John Banister of Dallas, writes:

We have not been called of the Lord until we come into the one body. The one body is.the church ~in his case meaning his local Church of Christ, therefore, we are not called of God until we become members of the church. This teaches that we must be in the church in order to be saved. Now the church does not save us. Christ is our Lord and Saviour but He saved us in the church

If we expect to be saved, then we must be in that which He has promised to save.

What a warped commentary! Mr. Banister concludes his pamphlet by saying:

         If this you will do, God in His mercy and grace will bless you and in eternity save you.

               Of course, the Bible plainly teaches that if you are ever going to be saved it must be in this life-not in eternity. Saved people have everlasting life now.

When Jesus in Matthew 16 said, “On this rock I will build my church,” He was talking about the church which is His body, the living organism-and not a heretical organization. When people are born again they are immediately, by the Holy Spirit, found in the body of Christ, and are a part of Him. It then behooves us to be obedient to the Saviour, follow the Lord in believer’s baptism, and unite with a local assembly of New Testament believers.

The born-again Christian will gladly go to church and will en­joy it. He will go out of love and not out of duty. He is com­manded not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb. 10:25).

Born-again Christians who truly trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, having repented of their sins, are members of the church, the organism-the church which is His body. I am not a Baptist because I believe that a church has to be called a Baptist church for its members to be saved, nor am I a Baptist just because I was brought up a Baptist, nor am I a Baptist because I think no one else will get to Heaven. I am a Baptist because I believe that the church which believes and practices true Baptist doctrine is the closest to the New Testament that can be found today.

               AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL THOUGHT SO TOO!!! In an excellent tract produced by Tabernacle Baptist Church of Lubbock, Texas, we have “The testimony of Alexander Campbell as to the History of Baptist Churches,” and it is writ­ten by Alexander Campbell himself. It is a part of the actual Campbell-Walker Debate in 1820. This was a few years prior to Mr. Campbell’s complete departure from the Faith. In this mes­sage Campbell states:

While all these sects are of recent origin, not one of them yet 300 years old-not one of them able to furnish a model of their peculiarities, or antiquity, greater than I have mentioned, the Baptists can trace their origin to apostolic times, and produce un­equivocal testimonies of their existence in every century down to the present time; and the model of their peculiarities the Scrip­tures themselves afford as far as the name Baptist is concerned.

Later in the same message Campbell states:

The grand peculiarity, from which the Baptists have found their name, is found in the Scriptures as a part of Christianity, and is simply this-to require faith or repentance as previous to bap­tism; and to immerse the subject professing faith and repentance in water into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Campbell continues:

This is the peculiarity from which Baptists have their name; all that believe and practice in this way are Baptists; and all that do not are not Baptists. I now proceed to show that the Baptists have existed in every century from the Christian Era to the present day.

               After which he continues to do that very thing. He traces a miniature history of the Baptists from apostolic times up to this present day.

Of course, they were not always called Baptist as such, but we will consider the importance of a name for the church in Chapter Seven.

               A further word about Alexander Campbell. He at first gave testimony of reliance on Christ as his Saviour after which he en­joyed peace of mind (page 28, Alexander Campbell by Thomas Grafton). It was later that he became warped on the subject of baptism. When he was baptized it was by a BAPTIST preacher and not in order to have his sins remitted! The same thing is true of Walter Scott and Barton Stone, other forerunners of the “Church of Christ” movement. So all of the founders of this sect of baptismal regeneration were themselves never properly bap­tized, according to Church of Christ teaching today!

               On page 105 of Thomas Grafton’s book he reveals that Alex­ander Campbell escaped ex-communication from the Baptist church only by getting out in time and starting his own church of “reformation”-ultimately the Church of Christ, though fre­quently referred to as Disciples or the Christian Church. Page 135 of this book tells us that they were first called “Campbel­lites” about 1830.

Alexander Campbell was a man mixed up in many ways, among which was his assurance that the Lord’s return was to be in 1866. In this he was like many date-setting cultists of this pre­sent time.

Alexander Campbell is still the patron saint of the movement. Right now I am looking at an ad in TRUTH magazine of the Church of Christ urging every New Testament Christian to order Alexander Campbell’s commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, which had been out of print since 1858. The ad reads, “Campbell’s own translation of the Greek text-truly a magnifi­cent book!”

Chapter Seven

Does the Church Have a Name?

“…a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle. “-Eph.5:27.

“Grace Bible and Banana Company of New York sells clothing, but no Bibles or Bananas.” So writes Rev. Joe Hewitt as quoted in a Missouri church bulletin recently. He goes on to say:

         Bouncing Berthas Banana Blanket, Inc. sells clothing but no bananas. The firm, Truth and Soul with Oz sells sweaters. Stan­dard Oil of New Jersey, after checking 55 languages to be sure it was harmless, came out with a computer-produced name Exxon for its product. Its main attraction was that it said nothing and meant nothing.

         Names do not always tell the truth about their bearer. One such is that word “Christian,” which is very misleading. To some folks it means that you are not a Muslim, Buddhist, or Jew. To others it means that your parents once attended a church.

               This is quite thought-provoking. In the New Testament a Christian meant a follower or a disciple of Christ. It would have to be one who accepts the teaching of and assists in spreading the doctrine of Christ. Christ’s followers are those who believe and trust Him, and are committed to serve Him. In the light of the New Testament, these are true Christians.

               Names do not always mean what they say. But, does the church have a name, anyway?

In almost every Church of Christ newspaper ad one sees, they assert that they have the proper name and that their church is the one true church. Yet, not one of their several names can be found in the Bible!

               In Re~elation 3:12, God declares that one day, yet future, “I will write upon him my new name.” But at the present time in this dispensation of grace, does the church have a name? The Campbellites boisterously declare that their “Church of Christ” name is the scriptural name of the church. However, the phrase “church of Christ” appears only once in the Bible and it was simply used as a general term where Paul states that the various churches salute the Corinthians (Rom. 16:16). This phrase “Church of Christ” is no more a name for the church than “Church of God” is in I Corinthians 1:2. So if the Campbellites have a scriptural name in “Church of Christ,” then the holiness folk have a scriptural name in “Church of God.” In fact, the church of God people would have the edge as far as the name goes because their name is repeated in II Corinthians 1:1 and in Acts 20:28:

No, the churches are called by various names. The true church (organism) is simply referred to as the church which is His body. The various local churches are referred to as the churches of Galatia (Gal. 1:2), the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philip­pi (Phil. 1:1), the church of the Thessalonians (I Thess. 1:1), and the church of the firstborn in Hebrews 12:23. In still another place the church is referred to as the church of the living God.

So the name “Church of Christ” and other names by which Campbellites like to be known are not to be found in the Bible at all. They attempt to use Matthew 16:18, “upon this rock I will build my church,” as a proof of the fact that they have a scrip­tural name, yet a name is not mentioned there at all. It simply referred to the church that Christ was building. A Baptist church could just as well declare itself to be Baptist and date the name back to John the Baptist. Or, since the Bible plainly commands the followers of the Lord to be witnesses, a certain false cult calls itself “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Now they have as much right to that name as the Campbellites do to call their particular sect “the Church of Christ.” Both of these isms are about equally dis­torted in their knowledge of the Scriptures.

The whole trouble arises from the fact that Campbellites do not distinguish between the church (the organism that is the body of Christ) and churches which are local assemblies of called-out believers. Perhaps God purposely refrained from giv­ing His church on earth any specific name so that false cults and isms would not be able to grab the name and attempt a monopo­ly on it.

C. J. Sharp, a Campbellite, states, “The church should, by all means, wear the name of Christ, its head and founder, rather than that of its members or adherents.” This, of course, is nowhere taught in the Scriptures. It certainly is a good idea for the child of God to be identified with the name of Christ, but this in no way means that God has given a specific name to the church and that one has to be in that particular group in order to go to Heaven.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He never said any particular sect, group, church. or denomination was the way to Heaven. Like Catholics, the Campbellites teach that salvation is in the church, and of course, it’s their church, they say. One thing sure, the true church could never be the Church of Christ (as it is known today) since this particular sect constantly denies the message of Christ and His free gift of salvation by faith.

               Independent, autonomous, fundamental Baptist churches really constitute the churches of Christ, but they would hardly dare use that as a name today lest they be identified with one of the most pernicious religious cults in existence.

Alexander Campbell himself once wrote in Millennial Har­binger, Vol.4, page 24:

         Have we any divine authority for being called Christians at all? Was the name Christian first given by Heaven, or men? We may fearlessly affirm that no man can possibly prove that it was divinely introduced or sanctioned. Now, if the name Christian had been given at Antioch, twenty years before by divine command, what an ungodly man must Luke have been during these twenty years after, and fourteen years before, in all thirty-five years, never to have called them Christians, but, on the contrary, waywardly and frowardly, to have called them disciples all the time. Unless we suppose this man Luke to have been a bold and daring offender against a divine revelation, it is infallibly certain that he, and his companions, the apostles, did not receive the name Christian as coming from Cod, but from rude and profane Antiochians.

Kelts, quoted by Comprehensive Commentary, reads, “BEYOND ALL CONTROVERSY, the name was given them by the Gentiles, probably by the Romans, as the very form of it sug­gests.”

Smith, in his Bible Dictionary, says:

                  It is clear the appellation “Christian” could not have been as­sumed by themselves. To the contemptuous Jew, they were Nazarenes, Galilseans, from whence nothing good and no prophet could come. The Jews could add nothing to the scorn which these names expressed. . . The inhabitants of Antioch were celebrated for their wit and propensity for conferring nicknames.

Ellicott, in his Commentary, says: “The Romans stationed at Antioch. . gave them this name.”

                Albert Barnes writes:

I incline to the opinion that it was given to them by the Gen­tiles.  . If it had been assumed by them, or if Barnabas and Saul had conferred the name, the record would probably have been to that effect, not simply that they “WERE CALLED,” but that they took this name, or that it was given by the apostles.

However, after all is said and done the name “Christian” is a good name. But churches today should be known as good churches, not by some label they wear but by what they believe, teach and practice! I am a Baptist, but not because I was brought up one or because I believe it is the only church, or that one has to be Baptist in order to go to Heaven. I am a Baptist (and I try not to let it interfere with my Christianity) because I believe that what true Bible-believing Baptists believe is the closest thing to what I discover to be New Testament church doctrine. Baptists were not always called Baptists as such, but there is a line of believers down through the centuries that have believed as the early church taught and believed, and sound, orthodox Baptists are today those believers.

Certainly saved people, after they have received the Saviour, and have thus been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, should follow the Lord in public believer’s (water) bap­tism and identify with a local assembly of Bible-believing Chris­tians. This is scriptural.

               But ever keep in mind that Christ is the head of the church. “Christ is all, and in all.” Thus, Satan’s fury is against the church.

The early churches (as biblical, fundamental churches today) were known for their fundamentalism, the purity of their members, and the independence of their churches. They stood for the eternal security of the believer, baptism by immersion of believers only, congregational government, and two ordinances:

baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Their officers were to be pastors and deacons. Their members were born-again people who had trusted in the finished work of Christ. Their work was getting folk saved and taught in the Word of God in obedience to the Great Commission. Their weapons were spiritual, not carnal. A church like this is a New Testament church whether it is called Baptist or not.

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. “-I Cor. 3:11.

               The Campbellite Church was not found in history until 1827. Hear this, “Dr. Campbell is. . the head and founder of one of the most important and respectable religious communities in the United States” (Memoirs of Campbell, by Robert Richards, Vol. 2, p.548). This is quoting a statement written by Henry Clay, American statesman, about the Campbellite movement. This would be well to keep in mind in view of the fact that the Campbellites insist that they are not a denomination or a religious sect.

Chapter Eight

Confusion Over Communion

Would you believe Monday?

One of the works by which the Church of Christ member hopes to reach Heaven is by the partaking of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, every Sunday.

Now Jesus did not say when we were to observe the Lord’s Supper or how often. When He took the bread (symbolical of the body of Christ) and the fruit of the vine (symbolical of the bl6od of Christ) “he gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me,” and then the same in Luke 22:20 with the cup, saying, “This is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” This Lord’s Supper was instituted at night and it was instituted before the crucifixion, so very probably on Wednesday night.

In I Corinthians 11, it is recorded that He also said, “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (vs. 25). Then in verse 26 He said, “For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

So the Lord did not say how often Christians were to take the Lord’s Supper. He certainly did not say it was to be taken every Sunday or on Sunday morning only.

C. J. Sharp, a Church of Christ writer, states, “Recognition of the first day of the week as ‘the Lord’s Day’ with the communion service as the central feature, thus showing the world the Lord’s death and suffering on the Lord’s Day.” Now certainly there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that the communion service is to be the “central feature” of our worship at all. Again and again the Bible emphasizes the proclamation of the Gospel and the reaching of souls for Christ, along with the edifying of the saints through the teaching of God’s Word as essential. There is actual­ly no record that the church ever took the Lord’s Supper on Sun­day.

When I was a pastor, we frequently observed the Lord’s Sup­per on Wednesday night-the night when it was probably in­stituted, and the night when for the most part the people present were born-again Christians and members of the church.

Campbellites use Acts 20:7-11 to teach their pernicious doctrine about communion every Sunday. Yet, Acts 20:7-11 does not say they came together every first day of the week to break bread. Nor is it implied. Actually, the opposite is indicated-otherwise, why mention it, as one of the old divines suggested. Campbellites also try to use I Corinthians 16:2 to further this heresy, but this verse does not speak of communion at all. It simply mentions laying aside offerings for the Lord on the first day of the week.

Now it is very likely that the disciples did break bread fre­quently in memory of the body of the Lord, and possibly it was often the first day of the week. But there is nothing in the New Testament that declares that they did it every Sunday, nor is there any direct command to do it every Sunday. To do so would be to make it very commonplace, and to turn it, as is often the case, into a mere ritual. Certainly we found that by having the observance of the Lord’s Supper at night and having it only oc­casionally it was a very sacred thing and meant much to the peo­ple of God.

Now here is an interesting thing. Campbellites use Acts 20 as their main verse for commanding that the Lord’s Supper be observed every Sunday. Yet, in this case it was after midnight before the bread was broken and so the observance actually took place on Monday morning! Please note carefully that Paul taught and preached to them all day Sunday and verse 9 tells us that when he was long preaching that a young man name Eutychus fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. This was during Paul’s message which was after midnight.

Now if it was after midnight Sunday, it was on Monday morn­ing when Eutychus was taken up and when in verse 11 they came together again and broke their bread. If then, you want to be ab­solute sticklers for making Acts 20 settle the exact time for the observance of the Lord’s Supper, it would have to be in the wee small hours of Monday morning!

No place in the Bible tells us how often to take the Lord’s Sup­per. One man of God has suggested that there may be reasons for taking it less often than once a week. For inatance, the Passover was observed once a year. Here, too, is an interesting thought:

Alexander Campbell said that the Lord’s Supper was “part of the worship and edification in all their stated meetings.” Now Campbellites today do not take the Lord’s Supper at night, so they do not worship with the communion service “in all of their stated meetings.”

What scriptural right have they to take the Lord’s Supper only on Sunday morning and skip the night meetings? And when are they going to begin the scriptural (Acts 20) practice of observing it after midnight Monday morning?

Campbellite A. G. Hobbs writes in his booklet, The Lord’s Supper, page 19:

So we follow the approved example of the church at Troas and meet upon the first day of the week to break bread in order that we may be approved of the Lord. Every week has a first day-so we meet on the first day of the week. Therefore, every Lord’s day we proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.

Now if this is the only proof that the Campbellites have for observing the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week, they are stretching a fine point, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, for it is the only indication of the disciples coming together on the first day of the week to break bread, and they didn’t do the bread-breaking until after midnight, as far as the sacred record goes! Quite obviously, it was the proclamation of the Word of God-the preaching of Paul, that was given “the central feature” of the day rather than the communion service which came about after everything else had happened. Thus do Campbellites twist the Scriptures, delude their followers, sub­stitute works for grace, and count the blood of the Lord Jesus an unholy thing.

Chapter Nine

Instrumental Insanity

“Praise him with the. . trumpet,. . psaltery, ar~ harp.”-Ps. 150:3.

Is the use of instrumental music such as an organ or piano in the church a sinful thing and an act of disobedience?

This is one of the most ridiculous assertions and one of the sil­liest of the Church of Christ heresies. It is so ridiculous that it is almost unworthy of comment, yet I felt that for people to see that they are being robbed of beautiful gospel music by these heretics might help them to see how insane their conclusions are.

Here is an interesting thing. The Church of Christ claims “silence where the Bible is silent.” Then why do they not keep quiet about instrumental music in the church if they feel that the New Testament is silent concerning instrumental music? This is just one more of their many inconsistencies.

You say, Do they really believe that the use of instrumental music in a church service is unscriptural and sinful?

The Church of Christ says that vocal music was the only kind used in the New Testament church. How do they know this? The New Testament is silent about it. As to the use of musical instru­ments in the church the Campbellites are utterly foolish. They are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Tim. 3:7).

I have seen Camphellites take out a large ad on the church page of a newspaper to absurdly attempt to proclaim to the world that they are worshiping God correctly because they do not use musical instruments when they sing in church. I am looking at a Cambellite booklet on the subject, Why Others Use Instrumen­tal Music in Worship, attempting to prove their theory. (Some few Church of Christ people in recent days are allowing musical

instruments in the church and quite a ruckus is being raised among these people because of it.) Many of the tracts and booklets by Campbellites that I have read actually state or imply that one will not be saved if he worships God with musical in­struments in his singing!

Here again this sect is not being honest in rightly dividing the Word of truth. The verses in the New Testament that they use to insist on vocal singing only in the church are verses that do not even refer to a church service!

Take Ephesians 5:19, “Making melody in your heart.” The verse is written to Christians in a chapter of general instruction about the behavior of a believer and does not say anything at all about a worship service. If verse 19 is telling the Campbellite church member not to use musical instruments in the church, then verse 18 is telling them not to get drunk in the church, and verse 15 is telling them not to play the fool in church. Read the chapter carefully and you will see that this is a beautiful revela­tion of instruction to an individual believer about his walk and warfare and the inner life of the Spirit-filled Christian. There is nothing said in the entire chapter about a church service.

The same thing can be said of another verse they frequently use-Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” This again is a beautiful chapter of instruction and inspiration for the personal believer and never once mentions the worship service, nor is there any indication that the Lord here is talking about how to worship in church. The very next verse is a general commission of instruction to the believer about his daily life, followed by words of admonition to wives, husbands, children, fathers, and servants. To try to channel all of this into a worship service is ridiculous!

Not only is the Campbellite absurd in the verses of Scripture which he uses to try to do away with musical accompaniment in the church service, but the reasons he gives for not doing so are equally as ridiculous.

A.J. Edward Nowlin writes a pamphlet called Mechanical Instrumental Music in Worship. This so-called message was from a Church of Christ in Decatur, Georgia. Mr. Nowlin states, about instrumental music, “To teach such is to preach ‘another gospel.’ “And he goes on to try to prove that using an organ or a piano with congregational singing would be to preach the wrong kind of Gospel. Another one of his points is this: “To use mechanical music in worship is to abide not in the doctrine of Christ,” and he tried to use II John 9 to prove this. Again, the verse in question has nothing to do with the subject, whatever. Point 22 in his pamphlet states, “Such use of mechanic~ music is a substitute for the instrument authorized in the New Testament.” Then he refers to Ephesians 5:19 which has nothing whatever to do with a church service! To top it off, the poor, deluded fellow says, “Try to justify such by the law and you fall ‘from grace.

I do trust that if there is a deluded member of the Church of Christ reading this, that you will see how completely absurd such a teaching is and that you will begin to study the Bible for yourself and make your way to a place where the Scripture is clearly taught and believed. This same pamphlet by Nowlin con­cludes by saying, “Addition of mechanical music to the worship is a presumptuous sin.” Do you really believe that the use of an organ or a piano to aid in singing for the glory of God is a “presumptuous sin”? No thinking person co~d b~ieve such.

I have an ad before me taken from the Panama City, Florida, church page of a local Church of Christ that gives four “reasons” why instrumental music in Christian worship is wrong, and none of the four reasons are scriptural or sensible. What a waste of the church’s money!

I am looking at a book by a Mr. Foy E. Wallace, Jr., called Instrumental Music in Christian Worship. On page 11 of his book he says, “Begin with the first passage that bears on the subject of our worship in song. Reading through the New Testament ‘sing’ is the limit of the command.” Then he proceeds to give nine references to New Testament Scriptures that include the word “singing” and only one of the nine refers in any way to a con­gregation (Heb. 2:12), and even then there is nothing to indicate that it would be wrong to use musical accompaniment.

How the deceived members of a church could swallow this ridiculous line of thinking is almost beyond human comprehen­sion. It certainly shows that not very many people think for themselves nor read the Bible for themselves. No Roman Catholic was ever sold a smoother piece of chicanery by the priest or bishop of Rome. All of their musical arguments stem from not knowing the Bible.

The Campbellite insists that he refrains from using a musical instrument in his worship service because the Bible does not specifically instruct him to. However, on the other hand, they have a pitch pipe, hymnbooks, collection baskets, electric lights, air-conditioning, and up-to-date baptistries. For all of this the Bible gives absolutely no specific instruction!

Even though Ephesians 5:19 does not refer to a church service, they would be wrong in their interpretation of the verse anyway because the word “psalms” in Ephesians 5:19 comes from a word which refers to the making of music with instruments-a song of praise on an instrument (Greek).

In James 5:13 the word means “to sing and play a musical in­strument, or to sing praise with a musical instrument.”

In I Corinthians 14:15 and in Romans 15:9 the word “sing,” scholars tell us, carries the same idea of singing with instru­ments.

So since the Church of Christ leaders are insistent about using those verses, Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, as if they did r~ate to church services, it is interesting to note the meaning of the word “psalm” which their doctrine hinges upon.

Liddell and Scott-Greek English Lexicon, Volume 2, page 2018. Psalmos, “Tune played on a stringed instrument.”

Moulton and Milligan-The Vocabulary of the Greek Testa­ment, part 8, page 701. Psalmos, “. . psalm or song sung to a harp accompaniment.”

Thayer-Greek and English Lexicon, “Psalmos, a striking, twanging; spec., a striking the chords of a musical instrument; hence a pious song, a psalm (Eph. 4:19; Col. 3:16).”

A. T. Robertson-Word Pictures of the New Testament, Cobs­sians 3:16. “The Psalms (psalmos, the psalms in the Old Testa­ment originally with musical accompaniment).”

Robinson-Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament, page 904. “A song as accompanying stringed instruments. In New Testament, a psalm, a song.”

There are many other authorities we could quote, but this should be sufficient to any honest seeker.

Quoting A. Marvin Sanders, who has made a thorough study of the matter:

THE USE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN ThE NEW TESTAMENT IS NOWHERE DENOUNCED. If instruments were already being used in religious worship with nothing being said against them in the New Testament, and if we are told to use the psalms, which means songs sung to a musical instrument, then we should use them to glorify God in present-day worship services. At least we should not oppose their use and make a doctrinal issue of it. Those who have a God-given talent for mak­ing of instrumental music should not bury it, but use it for the glory of God.

Do we really believe that God has changed? If musical instru­ments were used by godly men in the Old Testament (see Ps. 33:2-4; I Chron. 25:5,6; II Sam. 6:5; I Chron. 16:42; Neh. 12:27), is it wrong to suppose that God would still bless the use of musical instruments by godly men today? Multitudes were brought to know Christ not only through great preaching but through the music of such great men as Sankey and Rodeheaver in days gone by, as under the ministry of Spirit-filled singers and musicians today.

In Psalm 150 almost the entire chapter is given over to God’s endorsement of the use of musical instruments to worship and to serve Him.

The heavenly host shall use instruments to praise God. In Revelation 5:8; 14:2 and 15:2 we discover this to be so. If the use of musical instruments is fitting in Heaven, then surely it is proper on earth. Someone has suggested that Camphellites would be very uneasy in Heaven and would be quite out of place if they did not believe in beautiful music to accompany their singing. They would certainly have a hard time having fel­lowship with the great saints of all ages.

Since God was pleased with the use of instrumental music in the Old Testament (Ps. 33:2,3) and the harps spoken of in Revelation 15:2,3 are called “the harps of God,” certainly we can be sure that God is delighted with the proper use of instruments to offer praise to Him.

Another of the strange contradictions of the Church of Christ is that they refrain from using musical instruments because they say “such are not mentioned in the Bible.” Then when you re­mind them that neither is the pitch pipe, hymnbooks, nor song leaders mentioned in the New Testament, they reply that these are “helps to vocal singing.” Of course, the simple and sensible reply to this is that a piano, organ, or other musical instruments are also a help to vocal singing, as any choir or congregation will readily attest.

To quote Marvin Sanders again:

Some shallow critics have arrued that Paul and Silas in jail could not have used instrumental music because their hands were tied; but notice that the Scripture says they sang ‘praises,’ not psalms. These men, with hands tied, could not use psalms because a psalm is a song sung to a musical instrument. The Bible is so accurate!

However, even at that, what does singing in jail have to do with a worship service in church? You see how ludicrous the whole thing becomes.

Remember, too, that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, worshiped in the Temple where instrumental music was an in­tegral part of the worship. If Jesus likes it, I like it!

One added word about singing. To show the lengths to which these people will go to make a mountain out of a molehill, one lady wrote in to Searching the Scriptures, a Church of Christ publication, asking why they had to always interpret Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 to be a congregational effort and never a solo.

A columnist proceeded to declare in no uncertain manner that if the Bible authorizes a solo in these chapters, that all would have to sing one. Then he goes back to Matthew 26:30 (before Pentecost!) to prove that “THEY had sung a hymn” (plural), and therefore we have to conclude that singing in the church is to be congregational and not individual. The poor fellow says, “I in­sist this was group singing. Each person did not sing a solo

All Christians must sing. This is to be done at all worship services. If a Christian may sing when he gets ready, he could sing one time in his life and fulfill the requirements.”

Then he proceeded to try to prove how long it would have taken for the early church at Jerusalem with thousands of members, to have each taken time for a solo and concluded that it would have taken at least a week just for the song service. He deplored the idea that this would open the floodgate for chorus singing, quartets, sextets, etc.

So here is a fellow who takes Scripture before Pentecost (which according to their doctrine was before there was any church) and two verses from the general epistles of Paul which verses had nothing to do with worship services, to teach that solo singing in church is wrong and unscriptural. Enough of this instrumental insanity and musical madness!

Chapter Ten

“Campbell’s Soup”

Just enough truth to float the falsehood!

I used to hear an old man of God say that every false cult has just enough truth to float the falsehood. Church of Christ preachers use a number of Scriptures in an attempt to “float the falsehood.” In some areas, they are nearly right. But, a clock that is nearly right causes more consternation than a clock that is stopped entirely. And incidentally, if it be argued that the Campbellites are correct in one or two instances, it is well to remember that even a stopped clock is right twice a day!

It is also true that for the most part the Campbellites harp on the same few verses in most of their public sermons. Recently I heard a Church of Christ preacher in North Alabama say, “Take pencil and paper now and jot down the verses that I use.” This was pretty silly since he used the same few verses that he had been mouthing about all week. In fact, we listened to him every day that week and all that he did was try to pick to pieces a Bible message which I had delivered on another broadcast the previous day. He misused the same few fragments of Scripture on every broadcast.

Surely by now no thinking person who has read this book carefully would want to retain membership in such a twisted, false religion as the so-called Church of Christ. Let us recap the whole business in this tenth chapter of the book.

The Campbellites say that the Holy Ghost has no part in the conversion of a sinner aside from the fact that He (the Holy Spirit) inspired the Bible. But I Thessalonians 1:5 reads, “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.”

The Campbellite says that there is nothing in a man’s heart to make him know that he is a child of God, but God says in I John 5:10, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.”

The Campbellites claim to have a monopoly on the way of salvation, yet they are completely distorted in their under­standing of salvation. The North Alabama preacher previously referred to brought a message on “Not by Faith Alone.” He spent fifteen choice minutes on the radio attempting to prove that salvation is not by grace through faith, as the Bible declares it to be. He concluded his discourse by saying, “We are not saved by faith alone, we are saved by a combination of things.”

Now who on earth who has ever read his Bible carefully could conclude that we are saved by “a combination of things”? His message was a very confusing hodgepodge which surely would have left any lost listener more mixed up about salvation than when the man began to speak.

Though they claim to have a monopoly on the truth about salvation, they teach one to serve God out of the fear of being lost. Yet the Bible says in John 14:15, “If ye love me keep my commandments.” And in I John 4:18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.”

The Campbellite teaches that the Master’s sheep may perish, but God says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish”! (John 10:27,28). Which will you believe?

The Campbellite says hear, repent, confess, believe and be baptized in order to be saved, but the Bible says that salvation is the gift of God (Rom. 6:23) and Jesus said, “Come unto me” (Matt. 11:28)-not “come unto some church.” Jesus said; “All power is given unto me” (Matt. 28:18)-not “All power is given unto a rabid group that calls itself ‘The Church of Christ.’

Jesus said in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Did He fail to do this? Or did He turn the matter of salvation over to the Campbellite church?

The Church of Christ teaches that God will not hear a sinner. All one has to do is read Psalm 34:18; Romans 10:13; Acts 2:21; Isaiah 55:6; and Acts 10:4, to see that God can hear any sinner whom He chooses to hear. While it is true that an unsaved person does not have a regular prayer fellowship with God (not having a Father-son relationship), it is also definitely true that a sinner who does believe in his heart that Christ died for his sins may call upon the Lord and be heard. The publican in the Temple (Luke 18), and the thief on the cross (Luke 23:42) are evidences of this.

Incidentally, in connection with the matter of prayer, the Campbellite says that Paul was not saved until he was baptized and that God will not hear a sinner’s prayer, yet the Bible reveals in Acts 9 that God says, “Behold he prayeth” (vs. 11) long before Paul was baptized. Cornelius, too, in Acts 10 was heard by God before he was baptized.

A sinner must confess-the Campbellite says. Who does he confess to if God cannot hear the prayer of a sinner? How ridiculous the whole thing becomes if one does not accept what the Bible plainly teaches.

The Campbellite denies the heart-joy, peace, and comfort which God abundantly gives to a born-again Christian. In other words, he puts no emphasis on heart-felt religion. But to see that God does put emphasis on heart-felt religion and the joy of salva­tion read Galatians 5:22,23; II Corinthians 5:14; Isaiah 65:14; Romans 14:17; Romans 15:13; Luke 10:20; I Thessalonians 1:6; John 14:27; John 16:33; Acts 2:47; Romans 5:1.

The Campbellite states that there is no such thing as the divine call to the ministry. But to see what God says about it look at the call of Moses, Samuel, Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, James, John and many others in the Bible. See Acts 13:2; Acts 16:9,10; II Corinthians 3:5,6; I Timothy 1:12; fl Timothy 1:11.

In attempting to teach salvation by works (in plain contradic­tion to the Bible), the Campbellite fails to distinguish the dif­ference between the teachings of Paul and the teachings of James. If they would carefully read the context, they could easily see that Paul is talking about being justified by faith before God, while James is talking about being justified by works before man.

When the Campbellite is attempting to preach salvation by works, he never preaches from Paul in Romans but always from James, chapter 2, which has nothing to do with how to get to Heaven! God is simply teaching there that if a person does not have works, his faith is dead and he never was converted to start with. Whereas, if a person has been saved, his works will follow in natural sequence.

The Campbellite denies the absolute depravity of the human heart. One has only to read Jeremiah 17:9 and Romans, chapter 3, to give the lie to that heresy.

The Campbellite denies that saved people have eternal life now. Yet, the Bible very plainly teaches this (John 3:16-18,36; 5:24; 10:27-30).

The Campbellite denies that the Old Testament is for us to­day, yet never hesitates to bring up Old Testament verses when trying to prove his odd beliefs. They would have to admit that Paul told Timothy to preach the Word. If the New Testament was not intact at that time, what word was Paul preaching about? Surely the Old Testament. Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the scriptures. . they are they which testify of me.” What Scriptures was Jesus talking about? Certainly the Old Testament since the New Testament had not yet been written. The Bible plainly says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (II Tim. 3:16). This would include the Old as well as the New Testament.

The Church of Christ preacher says that a saved person can be lost again, yet he never does tell how a person gets lost again, how much or how many sins he has to commit, how he manages to cease to “hear, believe, confess, repent, and be baptized” if that is what it took to save him in the first place. And, of course, the Campbellite has no sensible explanation for why the fellow does not have to be baptized the second time if he gets lost and has to come again. Behold the inconsistency of the entire perverted business!

The Campbellite declares that the church has no right to receive or reject members. Yet Paul in Romans 14:1 told that church, “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye”; in Acts 10:47 Peter asks, “Can any forbid water, that these should not be bap­tized (indicating that possibility), and in Titus 3:10 God says, “A man that is a heretick after the first and second admonition re­ject.” So obviously, the believers have the right to reject one who is not sound in the faith.

In Acts 1:23-26 the disciples chose Matthias to take the place of Judas who had, by transgression, fallen. In Acts 6:1-6 the church chose and approved deacons, as also they ordained elders in Acts 14:23. We see also that the church made a choice of ser­vants in II Corinthians 8:19.

In I Corinthians 5:4,5 the church was instructed to withdraw fellowship and put an immoral member out of the church. And II Thessalonians 3:6 reads, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.” And in verse 14 of the same chapter, “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”

Thus, we see that the church had every right to choose who would be members or who would be rejected as members of the local assembly. Which will you believe-the Bible or the so-called “Church of Christ” heresy?

The Church of Christ claims to be the true church and thus claims unity of belief. Yet I have seen a number of pamphlets and articles in which they are debating and arguing constantly among themselves about the support of certain institutions and other fine points of interpretation.

The Church of Christ teaches “that we must live faithfully unto the end.” (The Campbellite tract by J. E. Waters). And consequently, even the Campbellite preacher does not know whether or not he’s saved till he leaves this life. There is ab­solutely no assurance of salvation in such a doctrine, and if there was any assurance, it would be proud egotism based on the fact that one felt he was good enough or had worked hard enough to earn his salvation!

The Campbellite says that we can be lost again after we are saved, yet, of all of their tracts and booklets that I have read, every verse of Scripture they use to “prove” this either has to do with a lost person who was never saved to begin with, or it has to do with a matter of fellowship in the Lord rather than relationship to the Lord. Thus, again, they do not rightly divide the Word of truth. So once more we see that they are guilty of wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction.

         In attempting to prove that a saved person can be lost again, Campbellite A. G. Hobbs says, among other things, “If it is im­possible for a child of God to so sin as to be eternally lost, then we need not pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ there is no need to be watchful and beware of the devices of Satan, etc.”

         Why is it that a Campbellite does not feel that Christians should beware of temptation in their Christian life? Why is it that he does not believe that the child of God needs to, be watchful of the devices of Satan to harm his testimony or to abort his service for Christ in this life? They do not believe that fellowship with Christ can be broken and that the joy of salvation can be lost on the part of a born-again Christian. Thus, they have to deny or ignore the teaching of the Bible about rewards for faithful service in the Christian life and about chastening by God for those who are disobedient Christians in this life.

         Many people do not see this innocent looking “Church of Christ” as a false cult. But to quote Dr. John R. Rice:

I have very sadly faced the fact that often Church of Christ peo­pie despise the best Christians in their community; they mock at the best Gospel preachers; they scorn the Gospel of faith without works or baptism, and otherwise act as one would expect false cults to act. So I believe that Church of Christ preachers, like the one whom I answered in THE SWORD OF THE LORD, lead thousands of people astray and keep them from turning to Christ for salvation.

         Thus Dr. Rice believes that the Church of Christ is a false cult because it is wrong on the all-important subject of salvation.

As long as the Campbellite does not distinguish the two resur­rections, the five judgments, the standing and state of the believer, the difference between salvation and rewards, and does not understand the difference between true believers and mere professors, he will never be able to understand the Scriptures correctly.

But the question may well be asked, WHY does the Church of Christ preacher or member have such a difficult time under­standing black and white in the Bible? Campbellite Hobbs in his book, Why We Do Not See the Bible Alike, discusses how to un­derstand the Bible and gives several rules which, if followed by a diligent believer, would save him out of the Church of Christ cult entirely. Yet the Campbellites follow such a method and end up completely enmeshed in the tangles of this heresy. Why?

Well, the truth of the matter is, one needs a key to unlock a door. Salvation by Christ through His blood is the theme of the entire Bible. This is the key that unlocks an understanding of the Scripture. I have a combination lock that has four cylinders, each bearing ten numbers. In order to open the lock, I have to line up numbers in all four of these cylinders in perfect harmony to one head mark. I have seen people try to open a lock without getting the numbers in line. They can never open the lock until the right numbers are lined up in the proper place.

When one understands the glorious truth of salvation by grace through faith, then all of the other doctrines line up in their proper order and the door of understanding opens.

There are only two classes of people in the world today. They could be lined up under the heading of DO and DONE. In other words, humanity is divided into those who are depending upon what they can do to save themselves and those who are depending upon what Christ has done to save them. According to the Bible, born-again Christians are those who are depending upon the finished work of Christ and who can sing,

My hope is built on nothing less that Jesus blood and righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.

All lost people, including zealously religious lost people, are depending upon what they can do to save themselves. Some are depending upon Christ plus works, baptism, etc., but as one great man of God put it, “He who adds to Christ, denies Christ!”

All of the many inconsistencies, contradictions and errors of the Church of Christ stem out of their failure to comprehend the great plan of salvation as devised by God “before the foundation of the world.” Peter teaches that “we are redeemed not with cor­ruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ” (I Pet. 1:18,19).

Because the Campbellite does not understand the plan of salvation, he does not understand his favorite topic: baptism! Because he does not understand salvation and baptism, he fails to discern the difference between water baptism and that bless­ed spiritual baptism by which the Holy Spirit puts a believer into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:13).

In a tract written by a Campbellite on What Is Achieved in Baptism, the writer states:

1. Obedience to Christ.

2. Salvation requires baptism.

3. Baptism washes away sins.

4. Remission of sins.

5. Puts on Christ.

6. Brings us into Christ, etc.

              However, the verses that the writer gives on these acts of bap­tism almost all refer to the immersion of the believer by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ when he is saved and has nothing to do with water baptism at all. He is unaware of the fact that it is the Holy Spirit who baptizes a man into Christ (I Cor. 12:13), and that the “one baptism” of Ephesians 4 is in no way con­nected with water. You will not find the word “water” in the en­tire chapter. The word “Spirit” is found right in the context. Water baptism never puts anyone into anybody.

There is the cloud baptism of I Corinthians 10; the baptism of suffering in Matthew 20:21; the baptism of fire in Matthew 3:10-12; and the baptism of John in water in Matthew 3:10; plus the baptism of Christians in water as commanded in the Great Com­mission. Baptism, in other words, does not always refer to water. If one honestly reads the Bible, that will be quite evident.

         In I Peter 3:21 the Campbellite fails to note the word “figure” here. Water baptism is a figure-not the real thing. To quote Pastor Randall Faulkner,

To make baptism an essential part of regeneration is to con­tradict the whole tenor of biblical teaching regarding salvation “by grace through faith” not of works. Paul stresses in I Corinthians 1:14-17 that baptism is to be distinguished from the Gospel and that the Corinthian Christians were to be saved by believing the Gospel (I Cor. 4:15). The message of the Gospel as given in I Corinthians 15:1-4 makes no mention of baptism.

The Church of Christ teaches that a person is not a child of God and that Christ is not his master until he is baptized. Thus he teaches that a person is buried with one master and raised with another; he goes down into the waters of baptism a lost sin­ner and comes up out of the waters of baptism a saved sinner. This theory, of course, does desolation to the Bible plan of salva­tion. Thus do these parasites delight in proselytes as they twist the Scriptures and mislead their followers; substituting works for grace; and frustrating the grace of God!

I don’t know what these people sing about in their hymnbooks, but if they ever tried to sing “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” they would have to sing it, “Water Fellowship, Water Joy Divine, Leaning on the Temporary Pool.” The Campbellite fails to see that water baptism in I Peter 3 is a “figure,” and that not once in all his writings did Paul ever tell anyone to be baptized to be rid of his sins. One of their debaters says, “Christian immersion is the Gospel in water!”

Campbellites are easily detected by their doctrine and their monotonous tone of voice. Hear one on the radio and it is always the same thing. Dull, dry and sing-songy; or argumentative, sar­castic, and fiesty. It is always the same song about baptismal regeneration.

As Ben Bogard says about the Campbellite grin showing a mingled feeling of contempt, insolence, ill-breeding, ignorance, and wickedness, so the subjects of their radio talks can be predicted before they come on the air. Brother Bogard also re­minds us that since Campbellites believe that a man must be baptized to be saved, then his salvation depends upon another man, for there must be another man to baptize him. Certainly no place does the Bible teach us that a man is saved by the ad­ministration of another man.

The Campbellite debates have helped to make the Church of Christ well known in some circles. In spite of the fact that God lists a spirit of debate as one of the sinful works of the flesh, Alex­ander Campbell in his Memoirs, Volume 2, page 90, states:

This is, we are convinced, one of the best means of propagating the truth and of exposing error in doctrine or practice. . .we are fully persuaded that a week’s debating is worth a year’s preaching!

      Bob L. Ross in his excellent book, Campbellism-Its History and Heresies, has reminded us:

For years it has been our contention that Campbellism thrives on deception and appeals to the spiritually ignorant and carnally minded, regardless of how well-educated. . .just as the Campbel­lites started out trying to cover up their true color, so have they done all down through the years since the beginning. They have pulled every punch in regard to names in order to deceive people into believing that their heretical outfit is the “Christian church” or the “Church of Christ.”

A man by the name of Walter Scott was the first Campbellite to practice baptismal regeneration. From Memoirs, Volume 2, page 84:

Thus in 1823, the design of baptism was fully understood and publicly asserted. It was, however, reserved for Walter Scott, a few years later, (1827) to make a direct and practical application of the doctrine and to secure for it the conspicuous place it has since occupied among the chief points urged in the reformation.

Bob Ross then reminds us:

And although the Camphells now held this doctrine as the truth, they had not applied it to themselves and never did apply it to themselves! Neither did Walter Scott, Barton W. Stone or any other of the early Campbellite reformers. According to the Campbellite doctrine (of baptismal regeneration) this leaves these men in rather bad company in the hereafter!

      To quote another, “Alexander Campbell lajd the egg, and Walter Scott hatched it.”

Bob Ross reminds us:

And what about the Campbellite “gospel plan” which they say one must “obey” in order to be saved? Why, this plan was con­cocted by Walter Scott in 1827 when his analytical mind arranged the order as (1) faith, (2) repentance, (3) baptism, (4) remission of sins, (5) Holy Spirit. Later, Campbellites squeezed in “confes­sion” between repentance and baptism and added “holding out faithful to the end” after the Holy Spirit, plus wearing the “right name, not using musical instruments, having weekly communion, etc.”

         Campbell soon was out of fellowship with Baptists because of his heresy, but it is stated that he always regretted the fact that he was unable to continue his efforts when in the ranks of Bap­tists. Shortly before his death he stated to Richardson, “There was never any sufficient reason for a separation between us and the Baptists. We ought to have remained one people, and to have labored together to restore the primitive faith and practice.” And as Bob Ross well says, “Of course, Mr. Campbell here meant the notions that he taught, not the truths held by ‘real Baptists.’

         As Campbell was baptized by a Baptist minister long before the first person was baptized by one of this new order with a view of obtaining salvation, he puts himself in a dreadful dilemma when he says: “Remission of sins cannot be enjoyed by any person before immersion. . . .Without knowing and believing this, immersion is a blasted nut-the shell is there, but the kernel is wanting (Christian Baptism, p. 531).”

As Campbell did not discover that the “novel” gospel put “bap­tism in order to obtain salvation” until AFTER he was baptized, therefore he could not have known and believed it then. Evidently his baptism was a “blasted nut”-a shell without the kernel!”-American Baptist.

While saved people look back to Calvary and rejoice in their salvation through the blood of Christ, the Campbellite philosophy is well expressed by one of these waterbugs in the Campbell-Rice Debate, page 556, “Millions of ages to come, there will be millions in paradise who will be delighted to revert to some river, or pool, or fountain, in which they put on Christ and vowed eternal allegiance to him.” How blasphemous! Is your Saviour a pool of water, or the Lord Jesus Christ?

         Writer Bob Ross reminds us that the Campbellite, in his eager search for water, even referred to the drop of water requested by the rich man in Hell as an illustration of the need for water bap­tism! And Ross comments, “Surely, to see baptism everywhere one finds water is an evidence of ‘water on the brain’!”

Campbellites erroneously believe that the “water” in John 3:5 is baptism, though the entire Gospel of John (written to show one how to be saved) never once mentions baptism in connection with salvation. But, from John 3:5 they teach that one is born of baptism! Alexander Campbell went so far as to say that the water is the “mother” in one’s salvation. So according to Campbell, the father is an eternal spirit and the mother an impersonal pool of H20. Of course, baptism in the Bible is always referred to as a death and is never said to be a birth, as the Campbellites declare.

Though one lady in Niceville, Florida, said that she knew some people who had been baptized as many as six times in the Church of Christ (presumably to have their sins remitted again and again), most of them believe that you do not have to be bap­tized to “get saved” the second time, or the third, or tenth, or the twentieth time. The Campbellites call this second way of salvation “the law of pardon,” and as Bob Ross well states:

It is interesting to note that while Camphellites teach that a never-saved sinner cannot pray acceptably to God, the person who is “fallen out of grace” (and is just as lost-according to their doctrine) can pray acceptably to God. In other words, here are two lost sinners, Jack and Joe. Jack has been baptized but fell out of grace. Joe has never been baptized. Jack can come to God and pray for salvation, but Joe must be dipped or be damned. (Campbellism-“Its History and Heresies by Bob Ross, Pilgrim Publications.)

So much for this religious variety of “Campbell’s soup.”

Chapter Eleven

Could a Church of Christ Member Be Saved?

                After viewing the “watered-down” Gospel of the so-called Church of Christ, the question may well be considered, Could a Campbellite be saved?

The answer certainly is this, that if a person believes what the Church of Christ teaches and does not understand God’s way of salvation, then the Campbellite is not saved no matter how many religious theories he embraces or how many times he has been dipped in the Church of Christ pool.

We recognize, of course, that there are probably a number of people in the Church of Christ because they have married someone who was a member or because they were over-persuaded to join such a group after they had found Christ elsewhere. Because of this, there very probably are some saved people in the movement. Also, if some of their members have pressed through all the trappings and heresies of the cult to put their trust purely in Christ and in Him alone for salvation, then they are saved in spite of the Campbellite teaching. As a pastor, however, I found fewer people of the Campbellite persuasion who were truly saved than almost any other denomination or sect that I ever had contact with.

Our watery friends, the Campbellites, make up one of the most pernicious of all religious sects. Generally, they are harder to win to Christ than almost any kind of religious people in America.

Whoever you may be, dear reader, whether a member of the Church of Christ, a preacher in the movement, or one who reads this book just out of curiosity, let me urge you to put your faith in Christ, and Christ alone, for salvation.

“Nothing in my hand I bring;

Simply to thy cross I cling.”

There are “given unto us, exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4).

These wonderful promises from God’s Word teach us that salvation is a free gift (Eph. 2:8; Rom. 6:23), and that one who is saved has everlasting life (John 3:16; 5:24; 10:28).

In fact, all the precious possessions that a child of God receives through Christ are eternal or everlasting:

Eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12).

Eternal inheritance (Heb. 9:15).

Eternal life (I John 5:13).

Everlasting love (Jer. 31:3).

Everlasting consolation (II Thess. 2:16).

A house in the heavens (II Cor. 5:1).

Eternal salvation (Heb. 5:9).

Eternal glory (I Pet. 5:10).

Everlasting kindness (Isa. 54:8).

When one is saved, he has the righteousness of God (II Cor. 5:21), peace through the blood (Col. 1:20), atonement through Christ (Rom. 5:11), forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7), justification by faith (Rom. 5:1); and as a Christian he is kept by the power of God (I Pet. 1:5), preserved forever (Ps. 37:28) and complete in Christ (Col. 2:10). God promises that the child of God will never thirst (John 4:14); will never hunger (John 6:35); will never be forsaken (Heb. 13:5); and will never perish (John 10:28).

Realize, dear friend, that to believe is not merely to believe the facts stated in the Bible, but to believe on Christ, that is-to trust Him, to rely on Him, and to commit oneself to Him (II Tim. 1:12). “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29).

In order to know that you do not obtain the righteousness of Christ by baptism or works, read Romans 3:21-26; 4:3-22; 9:30-33; 10:10; Gal. 3:6; 5:5; Phil. 3:9; Heb. 11:7, among other choice verses.

As Noah and his family were safe in the ark before the water came, so you are safe in Christ when you have believed on Him before water baptism.

After we are saved we work for the Lord because we love Him-not out of fear that we will be lost again. An old

divine has stated, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone!”

Yes, thank God, a Church of Christ member (or any other sin­ner) can be saved if he will but turn from sin to Christ in simple faith today. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).