The Baptist Faith & Message has always expressed our belief that God is three-in-one. But the brief five lines found in Article II of the 1925 BF&M gave only the most basic explanation of the Three. Attributes and activities of each were sprinkled throughout the other 24 articles (now condensed to 18). But beginning with the 1963 BF&M, Article II was expanded into three parts.
Within this expansive treatment, readers will find familiar beliefs about God, widely shared among orthodox Christians. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is omnipotent and omniscient. He is the infinite Creator and Ruler of all.
But a closer look reveals words carefully chosen to emphasize the particular Southern Baptist theological beliefs about the triune God.
Doctrine in the details
Our God is not just Creator and Ruler, but also Redeemer of the universe. Our God’s perfect knowledge knows no bounds, extending into eternity past and future. His knowing even peers into the future decisions of his free creatures. This stands against both open theism and hard determinism.
God is Creator of all, but he is Father only to those who become his children through faith in Jesus. This stands against a soft universalism.
Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was not a man who became the Son of God at his baptism. His conception was supernatural, born of a virgin. He honored God’s divine law by living a perfect life, free from sin. He died a substitutionary death, not simply an exemplary one. He was raised from the dead in a resurrected body and ascended to Heaven where he is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man. This stands against views of Jesus as less than fully human or fully divine. And it affirms his death in the place of sinners as the chief accomplishment of the cross.
The Holy Spirit is the fully divine third person of the Godhead. Reflecting our central belief in the primacy of Scripture, the BF&M details the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the Bible’s authors and his work in illuminating the Bible’s readers. Standing against a works salvation, the Spirit’s role in conviction of sin, regeneration of the sinner, and sanctifying and sealing the believer is affirmed. And distinct from Pentecostalism, the BF&M states that the Holy Spirit baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ at the moment of regeneration, not a second experience.
The God who was, is, and is to come
How should this expression of our faith affect us? Maybe it is most succinctly stated by the 17th century hymn writer Thomas Ken.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Download a copy of the BF&M 2000 from SBC.net.
Order the BF&M 2000 booklet from Lifeway.com.
