SOME OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRIDE

     II Cor. 2:9 - "For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things." Speaking of false prophets, Christ said to His church: "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matt. 7:16). Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, saying: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God". In the context, he tells them how he knew they were "the elect of God". The gospel had come unto them in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance (I Thess. 3:7). Timothy had brought Paul a good report of the Thessalonian church, whereupon Paul says to them: "Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith" (I Thess. 3:7). 'The "fruit" of the Thessalonian church was authentic in nature and sufficient in volume, not only to erase any doubt Paul might have had of them, but to elicit from him one of the greatest commendations ever accorded a New Testament Baptist church, i.e., "Knowing, brethren, your election of God".
     John the Baptist, speaking to his disciples of Jesus, said: "Behold the Lamb of God ..." (John 1:36). John is no longer with us to point out the Bridegroom, but the Lord's churches are not left without a guide, for they are blessed with the omniscient Director, of Whom the Lord spoke, saying to His church: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you ... He will guide you into all truth ... He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16:7,13). The "Comforter" Whom the Lord referred to in this text is the Holy Spirit, and He, in His Overseership of the Lord's churches, has given them the Divinely inspired Guide Book. And it is through this ONE and ONLY heaven originated Book on earth that the Holy Spirit makes the Scriptures "profitable" unto the Bride, for it is through this blessed medium that she is made intimately familiar with her infinitely sovereign and glorious Groom (II Tim. 3:16).
     A. The first characteristic of the Bridal church I call your attention to, is: Her origin and Founder.
The Bride of Christ, that is the New Testament church, although amply revealed in Old Testament types and shadows, had her material and earthly origin in the days of Christ and John the Baptist. John said: "He that hath (present tense) the Bride is the Bridegroom" (John 3:29). Christ is both the Founder and Foundation of His church (Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 3:11). So, it unavoidably follows, any and all churches whose origin and founder post-dates the New Testament are of illegitimate birth, having the wrong date of origin, and they have violated the Foundership of Jesus Christ. What shall we then say of the Popeish church and her harlot daughters? We simply say: "They have the WRONG date of origin, the WRONG place of origin, and, BY FAR, the WRONG originator.
     B. The second characteristic of the Bridal church: Every member of the New Testament church made a verbal profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, there are no infants in the membership of the church (Acts 2:41; Acts 8:35-39). "But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God,, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women" (Acts 8:12).
     Salvational competence is not in the power of the church, nor shall it ever be, for salvation belongs to the exclusive province of God's sovereign grace, and it is the fruit of His unmerited favor (Eph. 2:8). The Lord has given His churches irrefutable jurisdiction and custody of the ordinances, but as important as the ordinances of the church are, they have no salvational efficacy. And any affirmation to the contrary is a mockery of regenerative grace, an adulteration of the ordinances, and a dangerous deception of the subject.
     Romanism and Protestantism are in error as to the way God saves His people, for they give saviourhood to the ordinances, and they have, by this grievous error, deceived multiplied millions of people. Conversely, Baptists hold fast to the truth that God is the solitary Communicator of saving grace, and they steadfastly contend that every effort of man to mix creature works with redemptive grace is a blasphemous exercise; and it aggravates man's condemnation, rather than atoning for it.
     C. The third characteristic of the church: All members of the New Testament church were baptized upon the profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
     Sprinkling and affusion (pouring) are religious inventions of men, and they came along centuries after the Lord established HIS church.
     D. The fourth characteristic of the church: The New Testament church, or Bride of Christ, consists only of believers who have been baptized by church authority
     Having one's name on the church Roll Book does not necessarily make that person a member of the Bride of Christ. A marriage license does not make a marriage, and neither does a baptismal certificate make the holder thereof betrothed to Christ.
     Baptists have never taught that an unbaptized Christian cannot please God; but what they have, and yet teach is, that every saved person is commanded to be baptized (Acts 2:38). And failure to heed this commandment is a sin of great magnitude. Scriptural baptism should be sought without delay by every newly regenerated person, for it is a symbolic declaration of the believer's faith in Christ and admits the baptizee into membership of the Lord's Bridal church.
     It has been said: "Baptists have a lot of churchianity, and they have it at the expense of Christianity". Nothing could be further from the truth, for Baptists, more so than others, if not exclusively, contend without deviation that a person first must be a Christian before he can be a church member. And New Testament churches require of their members a deportment that emulates Christ. The imperative order with Baptists, and it has always been, first Christology, and then ecclesiology.
     E. The fifth characteristic of the church: New Testament Baptist churches practice membership discipline.
Baptist churches know the Lord has given them disciplinary authority, so as to keep their churches pure. And they further know, if they do not discipline their wayward members, the Lord will discipline the church for its indifference. Baptists know, it is either discipline or decay. So it is, their two thousand year history is proof positive of their perpetual discipline of their erring members (Matt. 18:17).
     The term "excluded member" is a misnomer, for it is actually a contradiction of terms. When a person is excluded from the membership of a Baptist church, his or her membership in the excluding church has been eliminated. Exclusion does not mean the subject is no longer saved; but the awesome fact is, the excluded person is no longer a member of the Bridal church of Christ. Paul was a great analogist, and in I Cor. 12 , he used an analogy to show the correspondence of the members of the human body, to which he likened the church. Nevertheless, Paul was a strong advocate of excisive discipline, and he admonished this very same church (Corinthian) to exclude from their membership a man who was guilty of incestuous fornication (I Cor. 5:8-13). In the physical realm, an amputated arm is no longer a part of the body. And the church being the spiritual body of Christ, occasions will arise when the church, for the preservation of its spiritual health, must, after due process, cut out of its membership any person or persons who have irreconcilably offended the church.
     It is possible for a New Testament Baptist church to err in its practice of membership discipline, for Baptists, as individuals and as churches, know they are far from being infallible and may unjustly exclude a person from church membership. Such action is exceedingly rare, and when the church discovers it has erred in this regard, immediate and expeditious measures should be taken by the excluding church to correct the matter, making null and void the action whereby the person was excluded. The person wrongfully disciplined by the church is not reinstated to membership, for, in actuality, his membership has never been otherwise than intact. In forty years as a Baptist, I have only known of two cases in which a person's name was unjustly deleted from the membership roll of the church.  And in both cases, the erring church discovered its mistake and, with eagerness, corrected it; and the tarnish on the names of the two people was joyously eradicated.
     The problem is not so much with the excluding church and the person excluded, as it is with sister churches taking into their membership a person or persons whom they know has been justly excluded from the membership of a New Testament Baptist church. Such a practice, if persisted in, cannot help but bring painful discord between the churches involved. Furthermore, such disrespectful action on the part of the receiving church goes a long way in negating the autonomy of both the excluding and receiving church, for it gives the excluded person an undue liberty, which, in turn, gives him some measure of advantage over his membership church. The baneful philosophy of some pastors claiming to be New Testament Baptists, is: "No circumstances should bar the receiving of any person who applies for membership, for if a person cannot worship with one church, he should be able to worship with another". This is a glaring contradiction of the Bible doctrine of church discipline, and the transgressing church will, in due season, find her way is extremely hard.
     F. The sixth characteristic of the church: The Lord's Bridal church recognizes the authority of the local or immediate New Testament Baptist church as the highest ecclesiastical authority on earth, and that there are no courts of appeal beyond its God ordained jurisdiction. The God given autonomy of the church is unquestionable.
     To emphasize the authority which the Lord had vested in His church, He verbally reiterated it, saying unto her: "... Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19; 18:18). That is in essence to say: "Every scriptural action of the church, whether it brings increase or decrease, is underwritten by the power of heaven itself'. However, I restate, it does not include any action of the church which is contrary to the Scriptures.  Therefore, EVERY CHURCH AND PASTOR should know how to rightly divide the word of truth (II Tim. 2:15).
     By the third century, many false churches, who usurped and denounced the authority of the churches of Christ, had come into existence.  And it was of these counterfeit churches the first ecclesiastical hierarchy was formed (A.D. 251). The Papal office, with its decretive power, was instituted in the year 606 A.D., and Boniface III became the first Pope. For the next nine hundred years, the Papal office of the Roman church assumed ecclesiastical Governorship of the earth. And any and all churches who would not recognize the Papal Headship must be, by any means necessary, brought to submission, the one alternative being extinction.  Many of the Lord's churches were violently erased from the earth during this dark and fearful time, but the powers of darkness failed to eradicate the Lord's betrothed. And there was a remnant of God's elect churches providentially preserved during these cruel and bloody centuries, and the offsprings of these churches are known today as New Testament Baptist churches.
     Calvin believed that Divine authority had been given the church to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and that he was God's chosen instrument to this end, the early fruits being Calvinistic and theocratic Geneva. But he was wrong in thinking that he had been chosen of God to lead the church in bringing in the theocratic kingdom, for neither the church, nor any creature, is to be the instrument whereby the theocratic state is to realize its origin or inception. The work of establishing the thousand year theocracy on earth belongs exclusively and auspiciously to the King of Kings, Who is the Bridegroom of the church.
     It is God that presents the Kingdom to His Son, Who is the Head and Bridegroom of His church, and His Bridal church shall share His throne with Him (Dan. 7:13,14; Rev. 3:21). It has never been the mission of the church to convert the world, but it is the mission of the church to preach the gospel to the world (Mark 16:15). And the church further knows that kingdom building, theocratic or otherwise, has never been a prescribed part of her earthly labors. Baptists have always believed in separation of church and state.
     The Amillennialist and Postmillennialist theories of the parousia of Christ will reach its absolute terminus with the premillennial "shout" of the Groom from mid-air (I Thes. 4:13-18). And all the saved who are of this erroneous persuasion, whether they be in the church, or out of it, will be, of all the saints on the earth at that time, the most surprised at the Lord's premillennial appearing. They will at that time, and with great joy, fully embrace the Premillennial doctrine of the rapture and Christ's second coming to earth (Rev. 20:4-6).
     The marriage supper of the Sovereign Groom and His virgin Bride (Rev. 19:9,17) is the primary event that initiates the Millennium; and it gives universal recognition and honor to the Brideship of the Lord's church, which has gone by the name "Baptist" for the last five hundred years. The rank and power of the Bride is eternally subordinate to her beloved Groom. Yet it will be ineffably glorious, for her binding and loosening faithfulness during her bitter tenure on earth will be recognized and, henceforth, made perfect.
     G. The seventh characteristic of the church: The New Testament church, through her two thousand year history has kept, and yet keeps, the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper as was delivered unto her by the Head of the church, which is her Bridegroom.
The keeping and observance of these two ordinances is, and was, infrangibly given to the Lord's Bridal church; and NO deviations in the observance of the ordinances are allowed. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are, in their every aspect, restricted to the local church.
     H. The eighth characteristic of the church: The New Testament church, which is unmistakably the Bride of Christ, had only one mission. And that was to be faithful to her Redeemer and loving- Head, the faithfulness of which included the carrying out of the Great commission (Matt. 28:18-20).
     I. The ninth characteristic of the church: By love serve one another" (Gal. 5:13).
This is the last characteristic that I will mention at this time, and it is, by far, not the least.  Christ said to His church: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). Paul, who was mightily used of the Lord in the establishment of His churches, wrote to the church at Ephesus, saying: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4:32). That is a lot of forgiveness, and it would enhance the spirituality and progress of the local church if its members would keep this truth in the forefront of their minds.
     The New Testament church was originally, and is today, local and visible in nature. It is a functioning organization, whose Divinely given authority is age long and cannot be successfully breached.