Due to the Roman Catholic leaders’ equivocation regarding hell being populated by the lost, Reformed Baptists cannot affirm, partner, nor worship in or with members of the Roman Catholic Church. We may both profess the Nicene Creed, but we do not hold to the same meaning.
The Catholic Church teaches baptismal regeneration, but Reformed Baptists reject that doctrine. Instead, the Holy Spirit regenerates by the Word and not by the water.
I am with John Knox who declared the Mass to be idolatry. Catholics worship the bread and wine rather than Jesus Christ whom the bread and wine represent.
For the honor of our Lord and Savior, we must condemn the Papacy and put our hope in Jesus. He alone is the head and sustainer of His bride—the church.
Roman Catholics confess the Nicene Creed too, but they mean something different than we Reformed Baptists. While confessing Jesus’ deity, they simultaneously treat Mary as if she is a god whom we should worship.
“For Spurgeon, it seemed impossible to serve—or to even conceive the idea of a changing God. Spurgeon writes: ‘I could no more think of a changing God, than I could of a round square, or any other absurdity.'”
Chapter 9 of the Confession teaches the important biblical doctrine of the total inability of fallen man to do anything spiritually good. Still, this teaching has been widely denied. In this blog, I want to address those objections.
Though the Confession affirms free will, it affirms the kind of free will that is compatible with the idea that this free will is incapable of any spiritual good.
Free will is not a faculty for making random decisions. Such a view actually destroys any meaningful free will.
Against some “Calvinists” (both contemporary and in the past), we must affirm the free will of man. But we must, while affirming it, also carefully and biblically define it.