Back in the third century, something incredible happened. The churches in existence had gravitated into two camps. One camp held firmly to the teaching of Scripture, while the other camp felt that some Bible truth could be "tweaked" for the sake of convenience. One example of this "tweaking" is found in "clinical baptism:" a baptismal candidate, being too sick to be immersed, had water poured over him instead. The result of this "tweaking" was the churches in this camp teaching false doctrine, such as the necessity of baptism to forgive sins, the importance of the "saints," and other heretical doctrines.
In the middle of this conflict between these camps stood Novatian. He denounced the camp of corrupt churches, stating that their baptism was invalid due to their false teaching. He preached that any born-again believer coming from one of these churches to a church in the camp of faithful churches must receive Scriptural, valid baptism. Needless to say, the compromising churches reviled Novatian as "divisive." New Testament Baptist churches today are reviled as "divisive" when we refuse to accept any immersion from a church that is not a New Testament church in doctrine and practice. Things haven't changed that much over the centuries. The point is that the compromising churches "protested" against Novatian and those New Testament churches that stood faithful to the Word of God. They protested that their compromise was exposed for all to see and that there were real consequences for their compromise. These "protesters" began to deride these faithful churches as "Novatians" and "Anabaptists." These "protesting" churches further developed into the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today. The Bible teaches that "like begets like," so it is no surprise that in 1517 and after, many stood to protest the things in the Catholic church with which they disagreed. No, New Testament Baptist churches are NOT Protestant. They were the first to be protested against because they desired to remain faithful to the Lord and His Word. We, too, need to continue faithful to the Lord and His Word, no matter the names we are called and the "divisiveness" that is created.
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About Jerry JacksonJerry has been writing for many years now. He has written tracts for several churches, as well as his ministries in Papua New Guinea and in Canada. He has had the opportunity to have many of his articles published in several Independent Baptist periodicals over the years. His main goals are to teach truth and lift up the Saviour. Archives
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