‘Who would have thought it? I, for one, didn’t. It never crossed my mind that it might happen. It really didn’t. But I was wrong. It has.
What has? Baptist sacramentalism! It never occurred to me that Baptists would become sacramentalists. I thought the two were mutually exclusive, self-contradictory. But I was wrong. A growing number of Baptists are becoming sacramentalists. Baptist writers are publishing book after book promoting sacramentalism. Baptist teachers are teaching it. Baptist preachers are preaching it. And more and more Baptists are adopting it. I’ll say it again. Baptists are becoming sacramentalists! Incredible!
Wait a minute! Baptist sacramentalism? What are you talking about?
Baptists are convinced that Scripture teaches that those who give a credible profession of saving faith in Christ should be immersed in water – as a public sign or outward symbol of the inward work of God’s grace that they have already experienced. Baptists are opposed to sacramentalism. They cannot abide it! Well, that’s how things stood until recently. But a growing number of Baptists are now beginning to teach that grace – that the Holy Spirit himself – is actually conveyed to those whom they baptise. Incredible!
Sacramentalism, of course, has long held sway among infant baptisers. In my “Infant Baptism Testedâ€, I exposed it and probed its dreadful consequences. Now I must do the same for Baptist sacramentalism. Hence this book.
In these pages, I expose what has gone into this Baptist sacramentalism – the re-writing of history, the faulty exegesis of Scripture, and the heady (and poisonous) mixture of ecumenism (including Rome, the Orthodox, eastern religions – not excluding Islam), the charismatic movement, the New Perspective, the re-definition of conversion, and the acceptance of infant baptism. This is what makes up this pernicious cocktail. And it has only one end – baptismal regeneration’.
So writes David Gay. If you are a Baptist, he has produced this book to warn you of what, if it has not already done so, is about to hit a seminary, a bookshop or a pulpit near you – and do so very soon. If you are a Baptist who is thinking of adopting this sacramentalism, he wants to let you know what you are in for. Don’t buy a pig in a poke! And if you are a Baptist sacramentalist, he wants to challenge the basis of your position and, at the very least, make you question it.
Why does he make such a song and dance about it? Because the consequences are dreadful. If Baptist sacramentalism wins the day, multitudes will be misled into thinking they are saved when they are not. And the consequences of that are unthinkable.