Recently, while preaching in a town here in North Carolina, a lady came to me and told me that I should not preach so strongly in favor of Baptist churches. She told me that I should not assume that Baptists have a corner on the truth. I have given some thought to her advice. Is it wrong to preach that if a person has been saved, that he or she should be a member of an independent, Bible-preaching, Baptist church? By telling a person something like that, am I not taking it for granted that all other denominations are wrong and consequently that Baptists have “a corner on the truth”?

The operative adjective in my preaching on this subject is Bible-preaching. While there is importance in the name, the most important thing is the truth. According to the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose name you bear if you are saved, “Thy [God’s] Word is truth.” No one denomination has a corner on the truth: all can take the Bible and accept it as their only rule for all matters religious and so be absolutely right. The problem is, most denominations choose to abandon the Scriptures at some point and choose tradition instead of truth. At this point, can any man be faulted for counseling saved people to leave such a church and find one that rejects tradition and stands solely upon the truth? Bear in mind that the Bible is the truth, the standard by which everything must be judged.

Jesus Himself was known during His earthly preaching ministry for rebuking a religious community that had elevated tradition above the truth. Consider these words of the Savior: “Why do ye [the Pharisees] also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” Jesus went on to cite the fact that the Pharisees violated the fifth commandment by their tradition. That is, when a man had parents who needed some material possession, presumably after they had gotten up in years and were not able to work as they once had, the child could withhold that possession from them even if he had it. He could say to his parents, “It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me.” In other words, the thing that profits you is something that I have decided to dedicate to God. Although it is with me in the house and I can use it any time I want, I can’t let you use it even though you might need it, because it has been dedicated to God. Jesus’ conclusion to these Pharisees was this: “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” Likewise today, many in religious circles cling to traditions that make the plan of God of none effect.

For the purposes of this article and, indeed, all that I say in my preaching or writing ministry, the term Baptist must never be confused with the term Protestant. The two are similar in a few areas, but vastly different in some very important areas. Let us consider, however, the historical Protestant denominations: Lutheran, Episcopalian or Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist. Each one of these denominations takes Bible truth and rejects it in favor of tradition. Consider the subject of baptism. In the Bible, baptism is only by immersion for only believers who have made a profession of faith in Christ. The classic Scripture on this is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Philip found the African man reading a portion of the Book of Isaiah, “coincidentally” the fifty-third chapter, and from that Scripture led the eunuch to faith in Christ. As both men traveled together after the eunuch’s conversion, the eunuch asked a very important question: “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Philip’s answer is pivotal to all Scriptural truth regarding Baptism: “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.” What kept the man from being baptized? Nothing, except a profession of faith. When the man professed Christ, he was immediately baptized. Protestant tradition, however, follows Catholic and Orthodox (Greek, Russian, and Eastern) tradition by the baptism of infants. This is nowhere found in Scripture and yet all the Protestants practice it, assuming they hold their historical doctrinal statements and practices. Obviously, there is no way that any infant can give a profession of faith, so to do anything to him and call it baptism is to make the Bible teaching of baptism of none effect in that person’s life. Other examples could be multiplied regarding not only Protestant churches, but also Catholic and Orthodox churches as well.

If a church is nullifying the Scripture and placing tradition above the truth, is it wrong to boldly proclaim that a saved person should leave such a church? Is it bigoted to stand up for the truth? By God’s grace, as long as I am able to do so, I will stand up for the truth and have no qualms at all about telling others that they should bring their lives in line with the truth. Again, recall that by “truth,” I mean the Bible.

Do Baptists have a corner on the truth? No. Any church that wants to accept the Bible as their only authority and proceeds to live by it as the only authority can be just as right as the Baptists. The problem is that once a church begins to move in that direction, they cease being whatever they were before by definition and become more and more Baptist by definition.

That is, the historical Baptist distinctive is that the Bible is the only authority for what Baptists do. If a person chooses to reject some aspect of church tradition (infant baptism for example) and embrace the Bible, he has become less of whatever he was before and has become more Baptist. A caterpillar starts as an egg and ends as a butterfly, and, while it is the same organism the whole time, the changes that take place in the organism necessitate different terms to describe his development. The organism crawling on a leaf with a wingless, segmented body that moves by extension and retraction is a caterpillar not a butterfly. After metamorphosis, however, the same organism is a butterfly by definition. The segmented body that once provided his movement has now changed into a body that seldom touches the surface on which the creature rests. The legs that once were short have now elongated to the point where they significantly elevate the creature off of all surfaces, especially compared to the former stage (caterpillar). The rear prolegs have disappeared and wings have formed where there was no hint of them forming before. All these changes take place to the same organism. The changes that take place in metamorphosis make the creature no longer a caterpillar but a butterfly or moth. So it has been with many Baptists. They started out under other denominational names, Congregationalist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc., but the changes that took place in their lives necessitated a change of name. The former appellation no longer describes what they are now are, and a different one is needed.

Baptists do not have a corner on the truth; they merely accept the Bible as the only authority. Anyone who accepts the Bible as the only authority, by very definition, becomes less of what he once was and more of a Baptist. Names are important, to be sure, but more important than the name is adherence to the truth. Baptists do not have a corner on the truth, but a true Baptist takes the Bible as the only real truth in his life. Thus, if any person knows Christ as Savior, he should become a Baptist. He should take the Bible and make it the only standard for spiritual truth in his life. He should be willing to reject blind tradition, ignorance, and falsehood and completely embrace the truth. In ignorance there is bondage; in blind tradition there is bondage; in falsehood there is bondage. By contrast, Jesus promised, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”