Graves, Landmarkism and the Kingdom of God (Part 5)

(Read the entire series.)

The clear implications of J.R. Graves’ ecclesiology was that local Baptist churches have been the sole repository of biblical faith and practice since the time of Jesus Christ.

On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrine of the gospel through all ages.¹

Moreover, Graves believed that he could not, in good conscience, even recognize non-Baptists as Christian brethren. In July of 1851, one of the adopted “Cotton Grove Resolutions” asked, “Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity, who not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to his commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?”² Graves was pleased to record that the answer to this question, as well as the other four under consideration, was a resounding, “No!”

On Graves’ view, as we have seen:

• The local Baptist church is Christ’s promised Kingdom on earth
• This Kingdom is always local and visible—a called out assembly of believers
• All non-Baptist churches are false, counterfeit “religious organizations,” and deliberate traitors to Christ
• All non-Baptist ministers are false, illegitimate ministers.
• Only Baptist churches may legitimately observe the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
• For quality control of the Kingdom ordinances, a Christian may only partake of the Supper at his own local church

These positions sprang from Graves’ foundational assumption that the local Baptist church is God’s Kingdom on earth. The Kingdom promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the prophets. The kingdom spoken of by our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Graves denied an apostolic succession of Baptist churches, but the practical implications of his position suggest precisely that:

It ought to be clear from these statements just how much importance is attached to church succession by Landmarkism. You can have no churches, no ministers, no baptism, and no Christian societies without proper authority, and you can only have that from a church in the line of succession. Thus all the churches, ministers, and baptisms outside the supposed Landmark Baptist succession are without authority, regardless of their being blessed and used by the Holy Spirit. All the great revivals of religion outside of Landmarkers, all the great evangelistic efforts by those other than Landmarkers, many of the greatest preachers of the ages, and many other movings of the Holy Spirit are without authority because some Landmark Baptist church did not meet and give its voice of approval.³

Conclusion

Graves’ entire system of ecclesiology stems from an erroneous foundational assumption. Even Leon McBeth couldn’t help himself; he abandoned all pretense of scholarly detachment when he observed that “the Landmark movement is best understood as a Baptist equivalent of nineteenth-century Roman Catholicism.”⁴ Graves may have agreed with at least part of that sentiment; he sounded like a Roman Catholic apologist when he lamented that not following the pattern Christ established for His Kingdom had led directly to denominationalism. “It is this horrible God-dishonoring and Christ-rejecting doctrine that has already given birth to the 640 sects that have arisen.”⁵

J.R. Graves’ ecclesiology is built upon the mistaken premise that the local Baptist church is God’s Kingdom on earth. The Landmarker distinctives outlined in this paper are the direct result of this erroneous assumption:

• Graves denied the existence of a universal church primarily because he believed God’s Kingdom was the local Baptist church, and that Kingdom had to be a physical, earthly entity.
• Graves believed that all non-Baptist “churches” were counterfeit and Antichristian, because they were not obedient to the blueprint for Christ’s Kingdom.
• Graves believed all non-Baptist ministers were illegitimate, because they believed and practiced contrary to Christ’s Kingdom.
• Graves believed that only local Baptist churches could legitimately observe the ordinances, because only they were legitimate Kingdom churches.
• Graves did not believe in an apostolic succession, chain-link succession of churches, but the practical ramifications of their stance on the Kingdom of God practically demands such an interpretation of Baptist origins.

Given the gross errors of Graves’ movement, a Baptist who calls himself a Landmarker ought to consider why he believes in some of the Landmarker distinctives. Has he inherited a diluted, watered-down form of Landmarkism without even knowing its history? Or, does he hold to these distinctives on the basis of Scripture alone? Any Baptist is perfectly to free to believe what he wishes about the primacy of the local church, the grave errors of infant baptism, and the disobedient structure of non-Baptist churches. Unless he agrees with J.R. Graves about what the promised Kingdom of God is, however, he ought never to call himself a Landmarker.