What is a Reformed Baptist?

We are Baptists that worship God in the Reformed tradition as expressed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. 

Scroll to view a sketch of what that means. This is borrowing from the deeper dive, found here.

We are Christian

We believe in the true deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, who is very God of very God, begotten, not made. Though God, he took to himself our human nature, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born of her, yet without sin, in order that he may be the perfect sacrifice and only mediator between God and men, who gave himself as a ransom for sinners. We confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand from where he will come to judge the living and the dead. He together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God and to be worshiped and served forever. To be Christian is to be Trinitarian. Eternal life is to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John 17:3). “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). "We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

We are Catholic

With a little “c.” This word means “universal.” We do not believe that “Reformed Baptists” are the only true expression of Christianity. Rather, we locate ourselves in the stream of historic orthodox Christianity that spans all time and all places (1 Corinthians 1:2) and gladly link arms with those who believe the same biblical, apostolic, orthodox, and historic Christianity.

As has been said previously, in essentials we seek unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity. 

We are Confessional

We publish what we believe so that everyone may clearly know what we believe and teach, and so that our beliefs and practices can be evaluated against the supreme authority and only infallible rule of faith and practice, the Holy Scriptures. View our Confession of Faith here.

We are Calvinistic

We believe that the French Protestant Reformer John Calvin rightly understood and helpfully articulated what the Bible teaches about God’s sovereignty in all things, including the salvation of man. We believe his teaching, not because he taught it, but because the Bible teaches it.

We uphold the Commandments of God

God requires of all men obedience to His revealed will, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:1-21). The Ten Commandments summarily comprehend God’s moral law, revealing to us who God is, what God loves, and what God hates. Those who have been saved obey God’s commandments with thankfulness and joy not to be saved but because they have been saved in Christ and have been given a new nature that loves God’s law (Ezekiel 36:24-27).

We are Covenantal

The storyline of the Scriptures is traced along the backbone of the Bible, God’s covenants. The Triune God covenanted in the covenant of redemption to glorify Himself through the salvation of sinners. Adam broke the covenant of works with God. God graciously promised a new covenant that was revealed in farther steps until it was inaugurated by the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. In the New Covenant, God promises to eternally save sinners who receive Christ Jesus freely offered to them in the gospel through repentance and faith. Those who receive Jesus Christ are and will forever be with God and God is and will forever be with them in eternal blessedness as promised in the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:8-13).

We Confess the Law and the Gospel

The Law of God says to us, “Do this and live.” The Gospel of God proclaims, “Live and do this.” Yet, neither the Law nor the Gospel contradict one another. Rather, they do “sweetly comply,” (1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, 19.7). The Law convicts us of our sins and convinces us of our need of a Savior. The Gospel proclaims to us what God has done in Christ to redeem sinners from the curse of the law and how sinners may be made right with God through faith alone in Christ Jesus. The Gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit, empowers us to fulfill the Law.

We are Credo-Baptists

We publicly confess what we believe with both our lip and life. Only those who are true disciples of Jesus are eligible to be baptized upon their personal profession of faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior (credo), as the Lord Jesus taught in Matthew 28:18-20, and added to the membership of a local church (Acts 2:41-42).

We are Congregational

Jesus Christ alone is the Head of the church (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18) and has given the necessary power and authority to each individual church to carry out worship and discipline according to the rules and commands of his word (1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, 26.7).

We are Scriptural

We seek to do all things by God’s book, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. From cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, we believe everything that is contained in the 66 inspired and inerrant books of the Bible authored by God Himself. How we are governed as a church and how we worship as a church is regulated by the Holy Scriptures.

We are Conscientious of our Freedom in Christ

“For freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery,” Paul says in Galatians 5:1. Because God alone is Lord of the conscience (1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, 21.2), we are free and obliged to reject the commandments of men that either contradict or cannot be substantiated by the word of God and we are bound to believe and obey the word of God alone. This is true freedom.