What is the difference between a Baptist Church and a Church of Christ?
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What is the difference between a Baptist Church and a Church of Christ?
I am thankful for this question and I am going to answer this question, but we need to address a few other matters first. Jesus said he was going to build His church. In Matthew 16:18-19, Jesus said, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” What we can understand from Jesus’ statement is that His desire was to build one church, which he then identifies in the next verse as the Kingdom of Heaven. We learn from Ephesians 1:22-23 that the church is the body of Christ: “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Now consider 1 Corinthians 12:12, which says, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ,” and 1 Corinthians 12:27 says, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” In addition to this, there are also specific congregations that were addressed in the New Testament as “churches of Christ” (Romans 16:16). So what do we have so far? We have the 1) one church that Jesus promised to build; 2) the body of Christ is also the church of Christ; 3) individual people are members of the church of Christ; 4) local congregations are called “churches of Christ.” Now, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 1:10-13: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” In these verses, the apostle Paul is condemning the mindset that would divide the church of Christ into various different bodies with different leaders and different beliefs, but this is exactly what has happened in history when the denominational bodies were established. Different leaders broke off from different religious groups and formed new “churches” that became the various denominations that we see today like Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. Each one of them had a man or group of men write a creed or confession of faith that became the constitution for their various different denominations. If we want to be what Jesus wants to be, putting our faith and trust in Jesus and in His word, then we are not going to want to be part of those efforts, because in such efforts, men are glorified instead of God. The Methodists glorify the Wesleys. The Presbyterians glorify John Calvin. The Baptists glorify John Calvin, and other men. They glorify them by putting their creeds and confessions of faith above the words and teaching of Jesus Christ himself. Hence, the fundamental difference between the churches of Christ and the Baptist church (or any other denomination) is that the church of Christ is not a denomination. We are simply trying to be what Jesus, as revealed in the scriptures of the New Testament, desires us to be, nothing more and nothing less. We simply can’t do that and be members of a denomination at the same time. We’ve got to remove ourselves from that kind of thinking and mentality, and just focus on Jesus: His will, His word, His apostles, His teaching, His church, His organization for the church, His teaching for the church.
Now, beyond this, I believe the questioner has in mind some of the surface level distinctions between what He/She sees in the Baptist church and what He/She sees in the churches of Christ. One obvious thing is that we don’t use instruments of music. Why do we not do that? Simply because you will not find it practiced by the church of the New Testament. Another thing is that we believe in baptism for the remission of sins, and that a person must be baptized to be saved. Baptists do not believe that. They usually believe in the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. There are some other differences as well, but I believe that these are the major differences. Now, I do want to emphasize that it is a fundamental mistake to compare religious bodies to one another as if a legitimate choice is to be made between the two. Christ has called us to be members of His body. The only comparison that we need to be making is between us and Christ and His design for the church. To compare ourselves to other religious bodies is not to compare ourselves to Christ, and that is not what we should be doing. When we start doing things like that, we will find that we will come short of many things. I know one church down in Houston that has a McDonald’s franchise built into their church building. I know of another that has a Starbuck’s built into their building. Should we compare ourselves to them? No, absolutely not, because they are not the standard for what the church should or should not be. If we started comparing ourselves to churches like that, we would find that we would fall short in all kinds of things. However, if we simply compare ourselves to Christ, that is where God wants us to focus our attention. Jesus must be our aim and our goal, and it is to Him and His word that we must compare ourselves whether as individuals, or as the church that He promised to build. When we do that, we will find that we can be faithful to Him in our own circumstances and situations. Let’s simply do that, and not compare ourselves with other religious bodies which may or may not be part of Christ’s body.