HOUSTON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

THE LEGACY OF JOHN BUNYAN IN REGARDS TO BAPTISM, COMMUNION, AND CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

SUBMITTED TO DR. RANDY HATCHETT

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

BY

JOEL BURDEAUX H01153113 APRIL 12, 2011 HOUSTON, TEXAS

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The Legacy of John Bunyan in Regards to Baptism, Communion, and Church Membership
On Bunyan: "Why, this man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere; and you find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God." Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the "Prince of Preachers"

In 1997, the two men who are perhaps the most instrumental in the shaping of my theology and ministry got into an argument. Both of these men are classically Reformed and Baptists. Both enjoy a very large following of younger disciples, and they have almost always agreed on every topic that they wrote and taught about. So I was shocked when John Piper wrote an article on the Desiring God Blog1 taking Wayne Grudem to task for changing his position on Baptism, and whether it should be a bar to Church Membership or not. The debate was over two pages in Grudem's Systematic Theology, a book that has become required reading for young pastors, church planters, and even seminarians. In the first edition, Grudem taught that credobaptist churches should not bar regenerate Christians from communion or church membership if they are convinced that their baptism as infants was/is valid. John Piper agreed. I also agreed, and even set this as the policy in my first church plant. While I was, and still am convinced that baptism is only rightly administered when it is immersion of a confessing believer, I could find no Biblical warrant for barring the table or membership to someone who was convinced by scripture of something different. I found Grudem's stance to be bold and prophetic, as did many others. He helped to create a movement of like-minded churches who were more interested in the necessity of regeneration for membership than method or mode of baptism.
1

Desiring God Blog, The. http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/response-to-grudem-on-baptism-and-churchmembership (accessed April 13, 2011).

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But, Grudem changed pages 982-983! While the first edition answered the question, "should churches divide over the doctrine of baptism?" with an emphatic and prophetic NO, the second edition took a more cautious approach, and avoided answering the question by saying, Some kind of compromise position on baptism is not very likely to be adopted by denominational groups in the future.2 I love Piper's reply. "With that cautious comment on what is likely to be, rather than what ought to be, the new section has lost the prophetic, biblical force of the original edition. Evidently, Wayne is not so sure any more that we should make the effort to overcome the divisions among evangelicals for the sake of welcoming true brothers and sisters as members in the local church. I think his first edition was closer to the biblical balance." Piper is not alone in this belief. In fact, this debate has been raging off and on for over five centuries, and among Piper's compatriots is a poor tinker-turned-preacher named John Bunyan. I begin with this short framing of the current debate, which eventually included other theological heavyweights such as Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Sam Storms, and even Ligon Duncan and R.C. Sproul, because it exemplifies two aspects of Bunyan's legacy that I hope to explore: his theological legacy regarding the doctrines of baptism, communion, and church membership, and his example to us on how to hold strong convictions about these important doctrines while refusing to let those doctrines (as far as we can help it) create divisions between believers. In short, I am not only struck but what doctrines Bunyan holds, but also by how he holds them. A brief word on structure: first, I hope to explain the culture and debate that John Bunyan found himself in, demonstrating his theology as well as his brave stance. Second, I hope to find in Bunyan's writing some wisdom that we can apply to our own lives and ministries. Finally, we

W.A., Grudem,. Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine. City: Zondervan, 1995.

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will return to the current debate and see how the theologians mentioned above either exemplify what we learn from Bunyan, or how they might seek to learn from him.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING About a century before John Bunyan was born, Henry VIII severed England's ties with Rome. The following century saw a veritable pendulum swing of back and forth between Anglican and Catholic monarchs, and there was widespread violence and persecution on both sides of the divide. By the time Bunyan was born, however, Anglicanism had emerged as the victor and was the official state religion. At Cambridge, there was a powerful and vocal contingent of Puritans, those who were opposed to the idea of a state religion and insisted that only those who were regenerate believers were to be considered members of the church. These Puritans were largely Presbyterian, although they did include Baptists, Congregationalists, and Non-conformists. So, Bunyan found himself in a society that was dominated by paedobaptists. Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians all practice infant baptism, seeing a direct correlation between circumcision and baptism. Yet, Bunyan held the minority position of credo-baptism. This does not seem remarkable to the modern reader who holds his beliefs and convictions in relative safety, but these were turbulent times and the stakes were very high. Bunyan knew exactly how high the stakes were, having spent twelve years in prison himself. We can overestimate the pain of his imprisonment if we do not remember that his jailers allowed him daily visitors, and even allowed him to leave prison on a few instances. However, we can underestimate the very real threat to his life as well. In a region not far from where Bunyan lived and ministered, over three hundred saints were martyred for believing and teaching

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the same things as Bunyan.3 He saw no guarantee of safety and security in this life, and searched the scriptures knowing that his convictions could lead to prison, torture, or even death.4 The debate that Bunyan found himself in stemmed from a booklet he published in the early 1670s entitled A Confession of My Faith, and a Reason of My Practice. In this (beautiful) work, Bunyan explained with whom he would gladly share the Lord's Table, and those with whom he would refuse. He welcomed all who trusted in Christ alone, and showed evidence of the regeneration of the Spirit, while refusing all who were living in unrepentant sin or who showed no evidence of regeneration. The problem with these criteria for other Baptists is that he made no mention of baptism. Bunyan seemed to be advocating a position in which believer baptism5 is not required for church membership and participation at the Lord's Table. This simply could not stand, so two Baptists, Mr. Kiffin and Mr. Henry Jesse wrote documents in response to Bunyan's position. Mr. Kiffin was most unkind, accusing Bunyan of heresy, while Mr. Jesse challenged only the doctrine by asking questions, and then providing theological reasoning for his position's answers to those questions. Wisely, Bunyan's response only briefly addressed the former while dealing primarily dealing with the latter.

DIFFERENCES IN JUDGEMENT ABOUT WATER BAPTISM NO BAR TO COMMUNION Bunyan responded to these critiques by writing a book entitled Differences in Judgement about Water Baptism No Bar to Communion and it is in this work that Bunyan most clearly lays
3

This event came to be known as the Bloody Assizes of 1685. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, King James II squashed a minor rebellion, and afterward about 320 people were hanged and over 800 were transported to Barbados. Many more were fined, flogged, or imprisoned. 4 This, perhaps, explains the passionate nature of Bunyans writing. When what you say can get you killed, subtlety is thrown out the window. 5 I do not like the term Believers Baptism, especially when the term is used as the opposite of Infant Baptism, for both grammatical and theological reasons.

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out his position on the necessity of baptism and its implications for church membership and participation at the Table. With a style, a humility, and a precision that has been all but lost in contemporary theologians, Bunyan makes nine arguments in favor of his position, which we will now briefly discuss. I. "...the Church of Christ hath not warrant to keep out of the communion the Christian

that is discovered to be a visible saint of the word, the Christian that walketh according to his own light with God."6 In this statement, Bunyan challenges his detractors to find Scriptural warrant for barring those with differing beliefs on baptism from communion and membership. The resounding claim by Bunyan in this section is that there is none. The passage of scripture that his opponents use to support their position is Ezekiel 43:10-11, is shown by Bunyan to be inappropriately applied to the ordinance of baptism. His main point is that baptism is given to the believer as an act of worship and obedience, not to the church as an "entry ordinance," thus replacing faith and regeneration. Baptism does not a member of the church make. That is the work of regeneration. II. Scripture does, as Bunyan demonstrates from Ephesians 4:4-6, clearly teach that

Christians are to seek unity, not division, with others who trust in Christ alone for their salvation. He writes of this passage, "If we are 'one body'; if to it there be but 'one Spirit'; if we have but 'one hope, one faith,' and be all baptized by 'one Spirit' into that 'one' body; and if we have but 'one Lord, one God,' and He in every one of us; let us also be 'one': and let them that are thus qualified, both join together, and hold in one." III. "It is lawful to hold church communion with the godly sincere believer, though he

hath not be baptized with water, because he hath the DOCTRINE of baptisms (Hebrews
6

All quotations in this section, unless otherwise noted, are taken from: J., Bunyan,. Differences in Judgment about Water-Baptism, No Bar to Communion: Or, to Communicate with Saints, as Saints, Proved Lawful; in Answer to a Book Writ. City: BiblioBazaar, 2010.

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6:2)." Bunyan goes to great pains to make this point clear since his opponents (perhaps rightly) accused him of prior muddiness on the issue. My own feeble attempt to summarize Bunyan goes as follows: what is most important is not that a believer comes to an understanding of baptism, but that he experiences truly what baptism preaches and signifies, which is that believers have been buried with Christ, and raised to walk in the newness of life. Of those who do not share Baptist convictions regarding baptism he writes, "Their conscience may be better than either yours or mine; yet God, for purposes best known to himself, may forbear to give them conviction of their duty in this particular. But what, because they are not baptized, have they not Jesus Christ? Or must we now be afraid to say that Christ is better than water baptism?" IV. "I am bold to have communion with visible saints... because God hath communion

with them, whose example in this case we are strictly commanded to follow. 'Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God' (Romans 15:7)." Anticipating that some might say that this passage does not apply to the unbaptized, Bunyan reminds them that Christ received us prior to our baptism, and that baptism is a picture or a shadow of that reality. Then he challenges them by saying, " ...if you would be justified in excluding those, with whom you see that God hath communion, because they yet see not a shadow with you; produce the scripture for such order, that we may believe that it is the order of God." V. The fifth point is a natural outworking of the previous ones, and infuses some much

needed grace into the debate. Needing no further explination, Bunyan writes, "...a failure in such a circumstance as water baptism does not unchristian us." VI. We should be bold to share communion with visible saints "because the edification of

souls in the faith and holiness of the Gospel is of greater concern than an agreement in

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outward things; I say, it is of greater concern with us, and far more profit to our brother than our agreeing in, or contesting of, water baptism." VII. "...I am for communion thus; because love, which above all things we are to put on, is

of much more worth than to break about baptism... [and] love is more discovered when we receive for the sake of Christ, than when we refuse His children for want of water." Bunyan anticipates an honest question; is it not "the highest act of [love] to be faithful to these professors, and tell them they want this one thing in gospel order, which ought not to be left undone?" Bunyan does not advocate that we remain silent on the issue, but that we receive first, and plead for continued faithfulness once received. VIII. I summarize Bunyan's eighth point as follows: if the divisions, factions, and parties in

the Corinthian church (which were based upon issues of greater importance than water baptism) were condemned as carnal, should not divisions, factions, and parties based upon the lesser doctrine of water baptism also be condemned as such? This is perhaps Bunyan's most direct attack on the character of his opponents, but it is warranted based upon his reading of 1 Corinthians. IX. As a pastor, I find Bunyan's final point to be the scariest of all. He says, "If we reject

visible saints... that have communion with God... we take from them the very privileges and the blessings to which they were born of God." May this never be said of me!

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS GAINED FROM JOHN BUNYAN I am amazed by this list of arguments. Bunyan has done the seemingly impossible, which is create a solid and biblically sound argument for fencing the Table, as it were, from the unregenerate, as well as for swinging the gate as wide open as Christ Himself does. This balance,

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while difficult, is exactly that... balance... and I believe it to be a biblical model that still speaks and is capable of guiding the debate in our current context. The original players in the current debate (Piper and Grudem) opened a can of worms, as it were, regarding the issues of baptism, communion, and church membership. Eventually, many of the prominent voices in Reformed Theology weighed in including Sam Storms, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, and eventually some Presbyterians, including Ligon Duncan and the venerable R.C. Sproul. While I can find no record of any of Bunyan's writings entering into the debate, other than some brief statements that he agrees with Piper's position, the major points all fall under Bunyan's nine headings. Two camps developed: Piper, Storms, Duncan, and Sproul on the one side, and Dever, Mohler, and Grudem on the other. The impetus of the argument revolved around the question of whether it is the job of the local church to qualify a prospective member's baptism or not. Piper (et al) insists that it is not. Dever (et al) however, insists that it is, to the degree that when asked if Duncan or Sproul would be permitted to partake of the Table in Dever's church, he had to concede that no, they would not. In Dever's defense (which I do not come to often!), this refusal was based upon love for those he was refusing, not on simple disagreement on doctrine. In words that almost echo the objection raised to Bunyan in his seventh argument, Dever said, "Baptism SHOULD be required for church membership. Because Jesus clearly commanded baptism and to disobey this command is sin [whether intentional or not]. To continue in such an unbaptized state is unrepentant sin [whether intentional or not]... Baptism precedes the Lords Table," (http://adrianwarnock.com/2007/08/mark-dever-joins-grudem-vs-piper/) and then goes on elsewhere to stress that because he, a sinner who receives correction from his paedobaptist

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friends when needed based on their love for him, also bars his friends from communion because he loves them and longs to see them come to full knowledge of the truth. Perhaps what is most impressive, though, is the way that those involved in the debate treated one another. Here is where I see the legacy of Bunyan taking root. All involved viewed baptism as a secondary issue that should not divide Christians. Even those who prohibit communion and membership are insisting that it is based on charity and respect, and encourage believers to join a fellowship in which they can worship according to their convictions. This charitable spirit, I believe, is Bunyan's greatest legacy in this issue. However, I fall completely on the side of Bunyan, Piper, and Storms on this issue, and I think that the way forward for the church is found in their example. Grudem is worried that Piper's permissiveness would lead to confusion over baptism, at best, and loss of distinctiveness at worst. Piper does not think this worry is valid, since he believes that it is a pastoral responsibility to teach about baptism. He insists that differences in belief about baptism are not a matter for Church Discipline, which is what Dever et al are regulating it to7. Instead, in the same blog post mentioned previously, he offers an example of what he would say to a paedobaptist who is a member of his church. Piper would tell this believer, "'Your mistaken understanding of baptism and the invalid baptism that follows from it are not the kind of disagreement, mistake, and failure that we are going to use in defining the meaning of the local church. We view you as a brother whose resting place is Christ alone, through grace alone, by faith alone, to the glory of God alone. You are in the Body of Christ. You may be in this body of Christ.' Finally, [Grudem] says, 'But then how could anyone who holds to this position tell anyone who had been baptized as an infant that he or she still needed to

If you are disallowing the table, then this is a sort of pre-emptive excommunication, and through this action, you are placing baptismal understanding on the same level as the man committing incest in 1 Corinthians 5. That is dangerous.

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be baptized as a believer?'" Piper responds simply, "By saying: 'You are wrong in your understanding of baptism. And your practice is wrong. You need to be baptized to be fully obedient to Jesus.' Compromise at the table does not equal compromise on doctrine. That is Bunyan through-and-through. The key issue here is regeneration. The church is made up of believers who have experienced regeneration, not of the baptized. This is the picture that Bunyan paints of the Palace Beautiful (the church) in his classic work The Pilgrim's Progress. When Christian reaches the palace, a porter stops him and will not let him enter until one of the virgins, a maiden named Discretion, decides if he should enter. After inquiring about his journey thus far, she allows him to enter, and Piety, Prudence, and Charity, three more virgins, are brought in to question him about his testimony, and want to know especially what happened at Calvary, which is where his burden fell from his back. Once these maidens, who obviously represent the virtues they are named after, are satisfied that Christian has been saved by the Lord of the Hill and is now displying evidence of the virtues in question, they bring him to the table where they share a meal with wine (communion) and all of the talk was of the Lord of the Hill (Gospel-centered preaching and fellowship). They then taught him, equipped him for his journey, and instructed him on how he should proceed. No mention of baptism, from a Baptist no less! Bunyan's point is obviously that baptism (or works, or status, or anything else) is not the entry ordinance into the church, but regeneration is. This is a very workable model for churches to follow, and I believe that it is the virgin Charity that is the most active in this process. Without her, the bar would be too high for any believer to join a church or take communion. Charity, however, is not invented by Bunyan, but we can still find encouragement and example in how Bunyan incorporated this beautiful virtue into the arena

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of primary and secondary doctrines so that progress and unity across denominational and confessional lines might be a reality in the church. Near the end of this debate, Abraham Piper, the son of John Piper, who is not a trained theologian, but was watching this debate with awe like the rest of us, offered the following commentary. I conclude with his words to the church: Jesus looks at mankind and sees two groups: the sheep and the goats; the saved and the damned; the repentant and the unrepentant (Matthew 25:31-46). Unless we are willing to say that paedobaptists are probably going to hell, then they areaccording to Christalready members in our fellowship, his church. What's left for us is to acknowledge this, and then to trust Jesus to show himself to his one bride.8

Piper, Abraham. The Desiring God Blog. http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/are-paedobaptists-unrepentant (accessed April 13, 2011).