Part One
By Dr. Don Boys
© 2000 Cornerstone Communications
Baptists have been, down through the ages, about the most hated and persecuted religious groups because their distinctives make them a threat to religious tyrants.
Baptists believe that salvation comes only through repenting of sin and placing faith in the blood of Christ. Works and godly living always follow salvation; they do not produce salvation. By rejecting baby baptism, they insisted that only converted people be baptized.
The cause of the Baptists' persecution in the middle ages was that they refused to baptize babies. In baptizing babies, a church has been able to keep its thumb on the people. No family wants to be responsible for a child going to hell, so they must "baptize" each baby to "protect" his soul. Religious leaders could see the threat to their religious empire if baby baptism were no longer practiced, so they persecuted Baptists.
Questions have been raised why the mode of baptism was not an issue during the Reformation days and it is very simple: There was no controversy about baptism because almost everyone agreed that immersion was the Bible way and the traditional way. The largest churches in the Church of England still have huge baptisteries in them (that have not been used in hundreds of years).
It was common for Roman Catholics to immerse into the 1500s, and John Calvin, writing of the word for baptize said, "The word signifies to immerse, and it is certain that the rite of immersion was observed in the ancient church." Well, if so, I would like to know why the followers of Calvin don't immerse today.
The churches were relatively sound up to the 800s but by the 1100s, Rome had a tight grip on most of Europe. The popes continued to grab ecclesiastical power at every opportunity until a major change took place with Pope Gregory VII in the 1000s. Gregory claimed supremacy in temporal affairs as well as church affairs! No one would imagine the graves that would be dug through the centuries because of that teaching.
Groups that believed Baptist principles can be traced through history. Those groups include Lombards, Abigenses, Waldenses, etc. These people did not baptize babies but only "those who believe in the name of Jesus Christ." Later they were called, Anabaptists or rebaptizers. They did not like that name because they said that they were not rebaptizing people since sprinkling of babies was not baptism.
These Bible-believers were persecuted by Catholics and the Reformers because they insisted on faith in Christ before baptism.
Before Luther took his stand, Michael Sattler took his and paid with his life. He was arrested in 1527 in Germany for his Anabaptist preaching and the court sentence read: "Michael Sattler shall be committed to the executioner. The latter shall take him to the square and there first cut out his tongue, and then forge him fast to a wagon and there with glowing iron tongs twice tear pieces from his body, then on the way to the site of the execution five times more as above and then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic."
Remember that was done in the name of religion-Roman Catholicism-but not real Christianity.
A Roman Catholic priest in 1604 said of the Anabaptists: "Among all the sects none had a finer appearance and a greater external sanctity than the Anabaptists. Among themselves they call each other brother and sister; they curse not, they revile not, they swear not...." That's pretty good when your enemies talk that way about you!
© 2000 Cornerstone Communications
