SBC vs PB vs FWB
HELPFUL COMPARISON
This video from Ready to Harvest is a brief, high-level, and helpful comparison between the Southern Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and Free Will Baptists. As with any short summarization, there are some points that I would clarify or state a bit differently, but given the challenges associated with brevity, I regard this analysis as generally accurate. For the insomniac or the curious, a few of my clarifications follow:
CLARIFICATIONS
Feet Washing is not considered to be an "ordinance" by some Primitive Baptists who instead prefer to regard it as an "example" to be followed. The terminology used has been moderately controversial in the past. The Donaldson Peace Meeting of 1953 produced reasonable guidance on the matter: "We believe that the washing of the saints’ feet should be kept up and practiced in the church, whether it be called an ordinance or an example. We believe those who engage in the practice should not fallout with each other as to what to call it - whether an ordinance or an example. We should practice it, and then observe what it teaches."
Primitive Baptists DO believe that repentance and faith are required for TEMPORAL salvation but not for ETERNAL salvation. We believe that God regenerates all of his chosen sons in keeping with a covenant promise (Galatians 4:6) and that they are all given the capacity of faith as a fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). However, the degree to which any child of God exercises his God-given faith in repentance is greatly varied (Daniel 6:10, I Kings 11:4-6) and results in different degrees of deliverance from the effects of sin in this temporal life. I make this point because it has been said that "PBs believe that men are saved without faith." That is not true. We believe that all of God's elect are given faith during their natural lives but the exercise of that faith to some requisite degree is by no means a requirement of eternal salvation. It is the faith of Christ (Galatians 2:16 - his faithfulness in meeting the requirements of the covenant on our behalf) that gives us eternal salvation, not our personal performance in exercising the faith given to us.
Primitive Baptists are NowMillennialists. While it is generally accurate to refer to PBs as "Amillennialists" when one looks at how that term was acquired and is defined in theological circles, the term itself is a misnomer. The alpha privative added to "Millennialist" leads many to incorrectly assume that PBs do not believe in the "millennium." That is incorrect. Primitive Baptists believe that the millennium is a present reality as manifest by the Kingdom of God, the institutional expression of which is the Lord's New Testament church.
FINALLY
I have not reviewed the entirety of Ready to Harvest’s extensive content and therefore cannot provide an unqualified endorsement, nevertheless I am thankful for their efforts in producing this dispassionate comparison and hope that it might encourage seekers to better appreciate the areas where Baptists agree and to biblically explore the areas where we differ.
- Elder Daniel Samons
