[8] Getting the Gospel right! Or, ‘How much of a man was Jesus Christ?’

In the 1700s the Baptist story was concerned with the good news of who Jesus is.  After the civic and religious unrest of the previous century, the country finally settled down under Hanoverian kings, and the church by law established, the Church of England sought to re-assert its former dominance. 

Anglicans believed there must be a ‘national church’, which would provide a common order of worship every Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer; and state the belief of Christians in the Thirty-nine Articles.  The significant number of English Christian people who did not agree with this pattern were classified as Dissenters, or Non-conformists.  These Christians had a range of ideas about how to be the church of Christ, but believed the touchstone for all this was the Old and New Testaments.  They advocated the complete separation of State and Church, with Baptists calling for religious liberty and toleration.  Baptists also advocated the view that the church was a community of adults who had personally come to trust the ‘Jesus story’. This was declared initially through baptism:  the complete immersion of believing adults in water, in the name of the Triune God.  This faith once confessed and accepted within the local church covenant, was renewed regularly at the Lord’s Table.

The 18th century has been called the ‘age of rationalism’.  There were those who said Scripture alone is not enough for determining the answer to the central question for Christians, who is Jesus?  This came to a head in a debate held at Salters’ Hall, London in 1719.  The fundamental question concerned the nature of God.  Is the One God to be described as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  This matter had been at the centre of Christian discussion as early as 325 AD.  An Alexandrian priest, Arius, claimed that Christ existed as a divine person, before his incarnation, so Jesus was in some sense divine.  His followers were called Arians.

200 years before the Salters’Hall debate took place, two  Italian religious teachers, Lelio  and Fausto Sozzini, , an uncle and nephew from Sienna, totally rejected the idea that Christ existed before his appearance on earth, and with it the Trinitarian idea of God.  They believed that Jesus was a man who, because of his life work, God made worthy of adoration.  The propagation of these views by an Anglican priest, Stephen Nye, in 1687 led to the Blasphemy Act [1698], which made those advancing such views liable to 3 years imprisonment.  Nonetheless the heresy gained ground, particularly through William Whiston’s book, Primitive Christianity Revived. [1710].

Dissenters dealt with this question about who Jesus was, when London ministers were asked to give advice about the views of two Presbyterian ministers in Exeter.  The question was this: Can ‘who is Jesus?’ be resolved by an appeal to Scripture evidence only; or can an appeal also be made to the historic creeds of Christendom, for example, the Apostles or Nicene Creed?  The majority of Presbyterian and General Baptist ministers declared Scripture alone sufficient.  Most Congregational and Particular Baptist churches advocated appealing to historic Christian creeds as well.  For General Baptists this was the beginning of many moving towards Unitarianism by 1800.

Particular Baptists had taken an interest in creedal statements in the previous century when they made common cause, once the monarchy was restored [1660]. with Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Independents against the Anglicans.  For Particular Baptists the gathering of over a hundred delegates from Baptist churches in London, in 1689, was a key event.  The Baptist gathering produced the 1689 Confession of Faith, which became a foundation document across Britain.  The 1689 Confession was drawn up by delegates who attended the National Assembly, where Baptists set about securing an ‘able and evangelical ministry’ for their churches.  In the 18th century, Bristol Baptist Academy and Broadmead Baptist church made possible the training of over 200 ministers for these churches.  In our Western Baptist Association, Broadmead led the way in making it a Particular Baptist community, when General Baptists were excluded by an Association resolution from Broadmead, whereby fellowship was confined to those who accepted the 1689 Confession.

Why was a statement of ‘the faith of the Church’ so vital? First, it made clear how this community understood the scripture story.  Second, it was decisive in doctrinal terms for the minister and his ministry each Sunday.  Third, it was the foundation upon which future ministers were to be trained at the Bristol Academy.  Fourth, it provided a tool for catechising children and new members.  Finally, it made clear what the boundaries were between different denominational groupings.

As Baptist churches have engaged in ministry and mission down the centuries, ‘Who is Jesus?’ has been a recurring theme requiring an answer.  The 1689 Confession remained foundational for Particular Baptists in the West of England until the 1850s.  The Baptist Union, in an attempt to make itself of service to all Baptists in the UK, consciously removed it as its basis, and in 1832 invited all Baptists, General and Particular, who accepted ‘those sentiments usually denominated evangelical’ to become members.  However, the issue still surfaces and as recently as 1971, one of our College principals, Michael Taylor, was asked to address the Assembly on a theme, chosen by the President, Rev Dr. G Henton Davies.  Davies’s theme was this: ‘The Divine presence: How much of a man was Jesus Christ?’  Taylor’s courageous and honest attempt to answer the question plunged Baptist churches in to disarray as they wrestled with one Baptist’s answer, but which the majority did not accept. 

But once the issue was resolved in the eighteenth century, Baptists were ready to face the task of telling the whole world who Jesus was, what he had done, and why: a story we will look at in the next article.

ROGER HAYDEN