GRAHAM SAYS HE DOESNâT CARE ABOUT BAPTISM

GRAHAM SAYS BAPTISM NOT HIS CONCERN

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November 26, 1999 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Billy Graham conducted a crusade in St. Louis, Missouri, in October 1999. In an interview with the press, Graham said that baptism is not his concern and not his business. The following is his statement:

"Baptism is very important because Jesus taught that we are to believe and to be baptized. But that is up to the individual and the church that they feel led to go to. The churches have different teachings on that. I know that in the Lutheran or the Episcopal or Catholic Church it is a very strong point, and in the Baptist church. But there are some churches that would not insist on baptism. So, I give them the freedom to teach what they want. I am not a professor. I am not a theologian. I’m a simple proclaimer. … I’m announcing the news that God loves you and that you can be forgiven of your sins. And you can go to heaven. My job from God is not to do all these other things. … I am not a pastor of a church. That’s not my responsibility. My responsibility is to preach the Gospel to everyone and let them choose their own church, whether it is Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox or whatever it is" (Billy Graham, interview with Patricia Rice, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 10, 1999).

This is an amazing statement and shows how openly disobedient Dr. Graham is to the Bible. He pretends that any baptism is acceptable--infant baptism, baptismal regeneration. Even no baptism is acceptable to Graham. He simply doesn’t care what happens to those who respond to his message. It’s not his business, he says. God does not require him to be concerned with baptism or "all these other things," he says.

This is absolute nonsense. Where in the Bible has God told Billy Graham that he is at liberty to preach the Gospel but not to be concerned with baptism and other aspects of biblical obedience? This is not what Jesus Christ told the Apostles, and it is not what the Apostles told the first churches. The exact same passages that command the Gospel to be preached command the baptism of believers and the training of believers. Consider the following passage:

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, BAPTIZING THEM in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matthew 28:18-20).

This is the Great Commission that Jesus Christ has given. The Gospel is to be preached AND believers are to be baptized AND discipled. Billy Graham has no authority to divide the Great Commission so that he ignores two-thirds of it.

Furthermore, the Gospel itself requires that baptism be practiced biblically. False baptisms corrupt the very Gospel. Graham mentioned, for example, that Catholic baptism is acceptable to him. The following statements from the New Catholic Catechism explain what the Roman Catholic Church believes about baptism:

"The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. ... The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are ‘reborn of water and the Spirit.’ God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism..." (New Catholic Catechism, 1992, # 1257).

"By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin" (New Catholic Catechism, 1992, # 1263).

"Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit" (New Catholic Catechism, 1992, # 1265).

This is what Rome believes about baptism. Is this what Billy Graham also believes? Does he believe salvation is bound to the sacrament of baptism? Does he believe that baptism purifies sin and makes the person a new creature and imparts the Holy Spirit? If Billy Graham believes what Rome teaches about baptism, he should be honest and join the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, if he doesn’t believe what Rome teaches, if he believes what the Southern Baptist Convention teaches about baptism (he is an ordained Southern Baptist preacher), he should condemn Rome’s doctrine as heresy and should warn his converts to have nothing to do with Roman Catholicism. Following is what the Southern Baptist Convention teaches about baptism:

"Christian baptism is THE IMMERSION OF A BELIEVER in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience SYMBOLIZING the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead" (Baptist Faith and Message, Southern Baptist Convention, May 1963).

There can be no neutral ground here. Rome teaches that baptism is a sacrament or channel or grace and that it purifies sins and makes a new creature in Christ. Baptists teach that sin is purified through faith in Jesus Christ alone and that baptism merely SYMBOLIZES and TESTIFIES TO the salvation the believer has already received through faith in Christ. Rome teaches that salvation comes from Christ to the sinner through the mediation of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Baptists teach that salvation comes directly from Christ to the sinner. Baptist churches have no sacraments or channels of grace. They have the simple ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper to symbolize and memorialize the full salvation the believers already possess in Christ.

The difference between the Roman Catholic doctrine and Baptist doctrine is the difference between heaven and hell. The Apostle Paul said there is only one true Gospel, and those who change the Gospel are cursed of God (Galatians 1). Rome and the Baptists teach different gospels. One or the other is cursed, and the ecumenical philosophy cannot change these solemn facts.

In the St. Louis interview, Graham also said that the Catholic Jesuits who came to St. Louis centuries ago were "doing evangelism."

"That’s the responsibility that Jesus left us, to go to all the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. That’s evangelism. That is what the Jesuits did when they came to St. Louis. They were doing evangelism" (Graham, ibid.).

Again, Graham says nothing about the false sacramental, works-faith gospel the Jesuits were proclaiming. What confusion! The Apostles spent much of their time warning about false gospels (i.e., 2 Cor. 11:1-4; Galatians 1; Colossians 2; 2 John; Jude), but Billy Graham warns about nothing and pretends that all who preach the "gospel" are preaching the same true gospel.

Billy Graham has had opportunity to preach to more people than any other man in this generation, perhaps in history. When he stands before God, he will give account for the souls of those who were deceived by his false ecumenical message and were thereby turned to false gospels such as Rome’s.